Annoyingly good.
Mo Salah
- Thread starter Robbie Boy
- Start date
Best in the world right now. Even when he looks like he's not at his best, he finds ways to affect the game with scoring or creating. i think his passing ability is really underrated.
Really, that’s the difference for you?
So, if Lehmann didn’t get a red card in 2006 your opinion on the Henry vs Salah debate might have been different?
Not trying to put words in your mouth but to illustrate the absurdity of these type of arguments.
It’s usually a CL winner but skewed in a year with an international tournament
What's the difference? True greats of the premier league are by definition one of the great names in the history of the game — the likes of Henry, Keane, Rio (the list goes on)... van Dijk, Salah and De Bruyne from the current crop. None, with the exception of Cristiano (whose peak was outside of this league), are at the absolute top of the pyramid though and none, including Salah, are on a trajectory to reach it (I'm not sure if it's humanly possible for him to do anything to reach, say, the level of top-20 of all-time, unless he wins the next World Cup with Egypt).
He may win a Ballon d'Or (I'd say that he's an early favourite for this season's) but then again he's more or less at the level of your regular one-time Ballon d'Or winners anyway when we're talking about historical standings. You can compare him to the likes of Nedved or Figo — not that he'll necessarily end up on top in these comparisons, but these are legit comparisons. Del Piero is the perfect reference point for me if we assess their entire careers and forget about the "what ifs" of the Italian's career.
Somewhat unrelated but I think we're heading towards a shift in the paradigm in regard to the very top players out there exemplified somewhat by rodri the past season, previous even when prem was the best league in Europe the very beat players were usually either in Spain or Italy due to their top teams willing to spend the most and the affinity of South American players for those two countries, the decentralized nature of the league didn't help either where in Spain you'd have two to three teams maximum vying for the best the number could be twice that amount in britain.
But I reckon the financial gulf has grown so much that even the previous factors wouldn't allow someone like Spain to keep their advantage in this regard, and with their old guard finally mostly being phased out it should become obvious in their replacements.
But he wouldn't have won without being player of the tournament in the Euros? Salah doesn't have a tournament like that.
Not all pl greats are world greats.
Great player, unfortunately. And only cost them slightly more than Andy Carroll did.
As I've said, true greats... I don't count PL cult heroes like Le Tissier in this category — or those who secured that status based on longevity (Barry, Milner etc.). Shearer, Cantona, Keane, Hazard etc. were all among the best players in the world at some point and feature relatively high on historical lists even though not at the very top. Same is true for Salah and has been for a while, this season hasn't changed much.
That is fair enough, but there are levels above, and I think Salah is reaching one of those levels that very very few make.
I mean it’s of course opinion based but not all greats of the premier league are automatically enlisted into the world greats list.
The Premier League hasn’t been the beast it is now either since its existence. It’s possibly only been regarded as the best league in world football since mid to late 00’s??
Salah has been a consistent dominant bar setter during the era of it being regarded as the worlds most competitive league, he’s produced those numbers in his stats during this period of greatness in our League.
3 more years of this level with the 8 years of consistency he’s already provided, then he gets in that top 20 greatest of all time ever for me.
And he will quite possibly have more EPL titles and CL titles during that period too which would help cement that claim imo
Greatest 20 players of all-time though despite never being in the top 3 of the Ballon d'Or at this moment? He's going well for the Ballon d'Or now but if he gets injured for 3 months in February at the wrong time then the chance of that fades from view.
Do you think he's better than Suarez, Lewandowski and Benzema? Better than Robben? Better than Neymar?
Then historically, do you think he will be equal to Romario, Van Basten, Bobby Charlton, Baggio, Gerd Muller? These are the sorts of players people would put in 11-20 on all-time lists.
Historically that's not easy then compare, but the other more modern players you mentioned I wouldn't he was better than.
I fecking HATE how good he is.
Yes I would put him above those players you mention not a problem. If asked to pick one player too take out of them lot for an 8 year long contract, Salah all day.
And I don’t see an individual award like the Ballon d’Or as the bench mark, it is of course “a” bench mark, but not the only one, it will of course strengthen the argument of putting him in top 20 greatest ever should his form continue for a further 3-4 years without question for me, his output is the bench mark for me and getting the accolades along the way in trophies and breaking records helps his case.
The Egyptian King has been sensational since jioning Liverpool. He's probably the best in the world again on current form.
Interesting to hear from those on here on where he stands in an all-time positional ranking of attackers/forwards who usually played off the right. Messi, Robben, Bale, Kubala, Finney, Hamrin probably the most similar as goalscorers from that side. But you could throw other versatile forwards into the mix like Gullit, Rummenigge, Stoichkov, Eusebio who all tore it up off the right too and then more conventional wingers like Figo and Garrincha for example.
Thought he was basically done after last season but he's gone up a level instead. Don't like him, but this season kind of do because he's the only forward player in the league where its like he manipulates the speed and style of the game when he's on the ball. Everyone else looks like a robot. Even the better players.
He's also probably the main (if not only) reason Liverpool are ahead of the rest. He elevates thm from being a decet/good team to a very good one. So you know, fair play.
He's also probably the main (if not only) reason Liverpool are ahead of the rest. He elevates thm from being a decet/good team to a very good one. So you know, fair play.
Closest player to Messi who isn’t Messi
Yes, they've fallen apart recently but he's still been among the top players in the world.
They signed him the same summer we signed Matic for £35-40m.
I mean, about 7 years later it sounds ridiculous that we (or really, all top teams except one) didn't make the obvious Salah signing. But have a look at the first few pages of this thread.
My favourite is "You'd think Liverpool just signed Messi's younger twin from the reaction over the last day."
No one expected him to be this good. Not even Klopp, if I remember correctly, since he wanted to sign someone else.
Suarez peak seasons for lfc,and best seasons at barca ,were even better than 17/18 salah.
If Ramos doesn’t break Salah’s arm and Courtois doesn’t have an all-timer, Salah could be sitting on 3 UCLs for Liverpool.
Henry just wasn’t as good as Salah in Europe for his English club, and this cannot be ignored.
I think this is a more solid framing than your previous one.
“Winning” is a weak argument in a discussion of individual performances in team sports. That was my point.
t’s funny how the pros—who do hours of work analyzing every detail—actually got it right while everyone on the internets was busy calling Salah just another flash in the pan.
He should get Ballon D'or, it would be fully deserved imo
Because of course, as we've seen over the last decade, the professionals are never wrong.
Mo Salah's mum wouldn't have been expecting him to end up in PL all-time great conversations when he signed off the back of a couple of very good but not blowaway 1-in-2 seasons in Serie A.
Ramos forever a hero for that.
In what sense?
Considering there wasn’t much of a bidding war for Salah, I’m assuming only Liverpool had these pros? Who, by the way, also got them Darwin Nunez after one excellent season in a different league.
Easy to be all captain hindsight about Salah now.
I think he’s in the top 5 best African players of all time at this point. Eto’o, Weah, Drogba, Toure, and Salah. I’d probably put him either second, behind Eto’o, or third behind Eto’o and Weah 
See, that's my immediate take too, but thinking more about it, I'm not so sure that's true actually. Salah just happened to play for a way better team than Henry did at Arsenal, one that wasn't as reliant on him winning games for them to actually win those games. Just look at their most famous european performance of the Klopp era and then look where Salah was that night...
Actually, by all accounts those pros were *against* signing Darwin, and it was Klopp that insisted on it on got his way
I think Mane has to be in there too. Top 3 of african players is Eto'o, Salah and Mane, in terms of quality. When you factor in legacy and fame, etc, then Drogba and Weah are huge as well, and Yaya too I guess(who was the best player of those 3). Also MadjerI think he’s in the top 5 best African players of all time at this point. Eto’o, Weah, Drogba, Toure, and Salah. I’d probably put him either second, behind Eto’o, or third behind Eto’o and Weah
That was Neymar.
I would pick Salah over Bale/Robben. His durability far outweighs both at this point. I also think he's easier to fit in teams to be effective.
I do think Robben's 2014-2015 season prior to his injury was on track to be potentially better than any of Salah's best seasons, but he got injured, so it's rather moot.
It's actually staggering how fit Salah is. He's got 5 seasons of 50 games played at Liverpool. Robben only has 2 seasons in his career where he hit 40+ after his move to Chelsea.
Bale has more seasons than Robben does, but he also tailed off a lot after the 2017-2018 season as a player. He was in position to take the mantle with Ronaldo's departure at Real and he was pretty poor the following season. Not sure either of them have much of an argument over Salah.
Now I really miss Klopp.
In any case, my point stands. The impact he's had could not have been predicted. At best, he would've been expected to form that successful partnership with Mane and Firmino. But to rack up 7 or 8 seasons of world class stats and single handedly carry the club at this age? Except for Salah, I can't think of a single person who'd have believed that that was possible.
It happens.
C. Ronaldo was a Ryan Giggs level talent who became one of the best goalscorers of all time.
Henry was a talented 1in5 goals per game young forward that failed at Juventus and became the best player in the history of the PL.
Not even sure how to describe Suarez' trajectory.
I doubt many predicted Van Dijk's ceiling at celtic.
Vieri spent a lot of time in the lower leagues before signing for Juventus. And they still sold him after one season in favour of signing an inferior player in Inzaghi.
Compared to many wide players and tricky wingers, like Hazard, Bale etc. Salah doesn't get tackled that much, there's always a cynic foul to take to take down counter attack or a through ball. In the last year's I don't recall that much incidents where someone had gone full throttle into him.