Emery admits he messed up snubbing Salah

UNAI EMERY admits Mohamed Salah has proved him wrong for doubting whether he could hack it at a top club.

Arsenal boss Emery once considered signing Salah from Roma when he was in charge of Paris St-Germain – but wasn’t sure the Egyptian striker was good enough.

Now he faces him for the second time this season insisting the Liverpool star has become one of the top five players on the planet.

Emery (right) said: “We spoke about the possibility to sign Salah to PSG when he was playing at Roma.

“We had some doubts – and then he signed for Liverpool and he has broken these doubts at Liverpool.

“Now, if you are speaking about the five top players in the world, one is Salah.

“What were my doubts? How he can perform in one big team for example.

“But today if we sign him, we sign one player in the top five in the world.”

Salah, a £36.9m capture from Roma, won the Footballer of the Year award last season after smashing 32 goals in the Premier League.

And he goes into today’s showdown with the Gunners at Anfield with only Gunners hitman Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang having scored more than his 12 league goals this season.

But Emery believes it’s at the back where Jurgen Klopp’s men have improved most and he reckons that makes them favourites for the title.

The Spaniard, whose team were the last to take points off Liverpool in a 1-1 draw at the Emirates in November, said: “Three years ago they had a problem in their defensive moments and since then they have bought some people, for example Virgil van Dijk.

“The result is we are looking at them today and their progress. They are very strong defensively and also they are improving a lot when they bought Salah and now offensively they are a very big team.

“The leader in the table is Liverpool and it is because they are doing things very well. They are established with Klopp in this process. They had the first year when he arrived in the Premier League, some injuries and difficulties. But they had passion and time to create and improve to like they are now.

“For us it is a good example but also a good test – what is the difference between them and us?

“They are unbeaten and with many great performances as a team and individually. We need this test.

“It is a very big surprise how Manchester City lost their two last matches and, at the moment Liverpool didn’t have mistakes in their matches.

“The first competition for us and for many teams is now, with 19 matches for every team, they show us they are stronger than the others.”