Salah brilliance matched only by strike partners
5-0 thrashing of a woeful Watford confirms the collective return to form of the most lethal attacking three in the top flight
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For Liverpool, the goals do not stop coming. Their thrashing of a woeful Watford side, who utterly failed to enjoy the standard new-manager bounce, was the eighth time this season they had scored three or more goals. Incredibly, it means they have become the first English top-flight side in history (yes, including the years before the Premier League was invented) to score three or more goals in seven consecutive away games.
And the overwhelming majority of their tsunami of goals, including all five here, have come from their front three. The statistics Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane are compiling as they steamroll opponents are astonishing.
Take Mane. When he supplied the perfect finish to Salah’s sumptuous curled pass, he notched up his 100th Premier League goal. He is the third African player to reach a century in England, after Didier Drogba and Salah. He also became only the third player – after Emile Heskey and Les Ferdinand – to reach that mark without the assistance of any penalties.
And when Firmino completed the scoring with the last kick of the game, he became the only Brazilian to score more than one hat-trick in the English game. It was a hat-trick that will have brought back memories for Liverpool fans of the one Dirk Kuyt completed against Manchester United in 2011. Because, like
Kuyt, none of Firmino’s strikes came from more than five yards out: this was a hat-trick of tap-ins. Yet there was nothing simplistic in his poacher’s collection: each was the perfect conclusion to a magnificent team move, involving most of his colleagues. As Watford’s defence was pulled out of position by the speed and adventure of Liverpool’s passing, Firmino found himself gifted so much space to complete the moves he was in danger of contracting agoraphobia. No wonder he grinned like it was Christmas Day when he shoved the match ball up his shirt: rarely can he have enjoyed such freedom in the box.
As for Salah, his beautifully choreographed dance through the entire Watford back line was no mere self-indulgence: it was concluded with a perfect strike into the one part of the net Ben Foster could not reach. It marked the eighth game in succession that he had scored, and put him level with Drogba as the most productive African to play in England, on 104 goals.
Though at the rate he is scoring, it would be unwise to bet against him overtaking the former Chelsea great this weekend. After the game, Jurgen Klopp, his manager, reckoned Salah is the finest player in the world right now. It would be hard to argue with his statistics.
The alarming news for the rest of the Premier League is that, after fitness and form temporarily deserted them for parts of last season, the three are coming back into prominence at the very same time and with ominous certainty. It is plausible to suggest they are better than ever. There can be no more producby tive front three than Liverpool’s. Chelsea notch up wins by margins of one or two rather than Liverpool’s four or five, Manchester City prefer not to employ forwards, while Manchester United have half a dozen of them who appear not yet to have been introduced. Even Paris Stgermain’s expensive trio of galacticos – Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe – cannot match the Liverpool threesome’s endless
delivery. Next up in the league for Liverpool is a trip to Old Trafford on Sunday. United fans must view the thought of their team facing that front three with a sense of alarm.
Though, frankly, such is United’s lack of cohesion and direction, Klopp could probably field his understudy forwards, Diogo Jota, Takumi Minamino and Divock Origi, and still add to his side’s avalanche of goals.