Salah joins Anfield greats with display touched by genius

Match-winner has passed into folklore alongside Dalglish and Gerrard

These great Anfield nights work best when Liverpool have a star they can show off to the world, to leave the rest of the industry jealous. That player is Mohamed Salah, whose first goal in a 5-2 jamboree stunned the audience with its suddenness and beauty.

The goals you never forget are the ones followed by a moment of incredulity. So it was when Salah stopped and paused just inside the Roma penalty box, looked up and curled a shot at a target about the size of a shoebox.

In classic world-class-player style, Salah pretty much decided to score. The Anfield crowd were not contemplative for long. Soon, an engulfing storm of noise crashed round the stands and his name was chanted with thunderous intensity. Jurgen Klopp called it a “genius strike”.

In a thrilling but not quite conclusive win, Salah was sensational. He can thank the left side of Roma’s defence for playing one-on-one against him (Nunes Juan Jesus was dreadful); but in this form it would have taken half a dozen Roman centurions to stop him. Only when he left the field with 15 minutes left did the Serie A team recover their faculties, with two goals that gave them hope of repeating their comeback against Barcelona in the previous round.

The build-up to this game featured much nostalgia about Rome in 1984 and Liverpool’s five European Cup wins. Those victories were supreme collective efforts, but also featured great