Mohamed Salah: Liverpool Star earns Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo’s comparison because the stunning season continues against Man City | Football news

After 12 minutes at the Etihad Stadium, and after the start of the bright Manchester City, Mohamed Salah collected the passage from Trent Alexander-Arnold and suddenly exploded from Nathan Akea, drove in the box and put the hosts on the back of his leg.

“It’s the first time we saw the Liverpool player look comfortable,” Gary Neville remarked on the co -man for Sky Sports. It was a reminder, if necessary, Salah doesn’t need much to include a game in Liverpool’s benefit.

Barely two minutes later, he achieved their opener.

His goal, shot through a bunch of body after a well -treated routine in the corner, was his 241. In all competitions for Liverpool, putting him in a common third with Gordon Hodgson in their timely ladder, behind only Roger Hunt and Ian Rush. It’s an amazing work. But he was never so good.

There are few players. In fact, with assistance to second place, Dominic Szoboszlai achieved, to add his goal, Salah remains comfortable on the way to the best season in the history of the Premier League.

It’s only February and, with 25 goals and 16 assists, Salah’s combined 41 puts it behind only a few players to participate in the goal in one season. It is along the way to completely break the record 47, set by Alan Shearer and Andrew Cole during a season of 42 games.

Continue at the same speed and will end at 58.

“This will eventually be the biggest season we’ve ever seen from the individual, I’m not doubting that,” he said Sky Sports Pundit Jamie Carragher after that.

“It’s not just about ending up above these players, but it may be set up a tape so high that no one can get there in the future. We see something special.”

Salah showed his full repertoire at Etihad Stadium, delivering on the biggest stage and for the second time this season, destroying Manchester City. He is the first player in the history of the Premier League to achieve assistance in both games against the ruling champions.

The numbers are stunning. Salah has achieved and assisted this season in 11 Premier League games, which is the most player in any of the best European leagues from Lionel Messi for Barcelona in 2014/15. “He has a season of Messi and Ronald,” Carragher added. “We’re talking about Ballon D’Ors,” said Daniel Sturridge.

“There are good players there, and then he is,” Neville added as Salah continued her desolation in the second half. You wouldn’t know, watch him in June 33 years.

His age is at the center of standing between the club and the player because of his new contract, but this was only the latest appearance that showed that Salah acts at the absolute peak of his powers.

“He has always been strong, but this season seems to be the way he holds the ball from long passers -by and holding a defender at the length of his hand is better than ever,” Neville said as Salah made space for himself in the middle of a pile of light -blue shirts and sent the passage of the field to Curtis Jones.

That same mixture of strength and calm was visible in leading to Liverpool’s second goal, while with apparent ease he rejected Josko Guardiol before pulling out inside and feeding Szoboszlai.

Manchester City couldn’t handle. Salah, with his aim, showed his usual ruthlessness, burning his first shot on the target, although with a deduction, but it was so much more than his appearance.

It is brutally effective, but it is also capable of subtlety. In the first half, he produced a brilliantly concealed passage to let Trent Alexander-Arnold let in the box. His willingness and ability to transfer between the roles of Sagittarius and the provider are among many qualities that separate him from the others.

And he did his duties without a ball. While Alexander-Arnold struggled in the first half to restrain Jeremy Doku, Salah followed to help, at one point, accelerating Omara Marmoush and Loca in fast inheritance to break out. He was even there even in the final stages, when the game looked safe.

Of course, this Liverpool victory was not just about Salah. Just as Liverpool’s season, which looks now, but will surely end up in the glory of the Premier League, was not just about Salah.

Under the Arna slots continue to develop and adjust what is necessary. The defeat at Nottingham Forest in September remains their only one in the Premier League throughout the season.

They just keep picking up points. At the Etihad Stadium, Neville described his account as a “classic visiting performance.” Salah caused damage, but Liverpool had only 34 percent of possession as a whole. The way they defended their box, calm and cold, was another key to the outcome.

They even found a new goal for a goal through the Salah opener. Before Sunday, at a joint bottom, they ranked the Premier League for goals this season with three. They discovered improvement in one of the few areas in which they needed.

“The best thing about this Liverpool performance is that we have been conditioned for more than six or seven years that you need philosophy, you need to play one way,” Neville said. “This team can adapt and do three or four different things in the same half.”

And of course, they also know how to best get the best of their best player. “He is at an absolutely golden moment in his career where everything is felt so easy,” Neville said of Salah. “It’s on the second level than anything else on that ground.”

Maybe a different level of any player in the history of the Premier League. The numbers behind his astonishing season must have put him in that carrier. And, with three more months, still coming.

Neville’s Salah judgments in full: ‘This is what the world class looks like’

Gary Nevillespeaking on Gary Neville Podcast::

“He was a class, for as long as he was in Liverpool, but when I look at him right now, he is unspeakable, and is psychologically in the head of the opponent he is fighting.

“When you play against someone you think, ‘Well, I’m going to break him, knock him, go through him. “You can’t, he’s like a brick wall.

“That ball plays with him with 40 to 50 meters away from Alisson to his chest [for the second goal]And he holds the Guardiol, who is 6ft 3in, as if he were a little boy. He does this all season, and I may not have seen it in the past from him.

“Everything is so polished and so perfectly and so slow, and when I say slow, I think it’s in the last third of the bravest place on the football field, but everything just feels so composed and slow when it is on the ball.

“You know that at the right time he will play the passage, it will be the right weight of the passage, he will play a real cross, he will be effective in his shooting.

“She is absolutely at the top of her game, is a different level than anything else in the league this season in terms of performance level, and he is a world class.

“I don’t go according to his contract, Liverpool will obviously desperately try to keep him, but he is one of the best players that the Premier League has seen.

“When I looked back at my career, especially in my first season of the title, when [Eric] Cantona scored individual goals, and you just thought: “It’s a difference, a difference of a player, who only in the most challenging moment offers the core of the season where the title is on the line, where you play against the best teams.”

“Who will get you up and win you with a match? It’s Salah for Liverpool. Today, a goal that achieves, assists for another, honestly, is what you want from a world class player.

“That’s how the world class looks. They appear in the biggest moments, and he did it today in City.”