Salah’s on his way to matching Messi
Rob Draper listens in as Michael Owen (158 Liverpool goals) and Ian Rush (346 Liverpool goals) discuss the art of finishing, Mo Salah’s extraordinary 44 goals and how the Egyptian has improved this season
RUSH: People are comparing Mo to Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. But they have been doing it year in, year out. When they finish, they’ll be up there with the best ever. But this is Salah’s first year at Liverpool and I’ve only seen two other players [like this] in their first year: one was Fernando Torres and the other was Luis Suarez. They were fantastic. I’d go as far to say that Salah has outdone them. He’s been unbelievable. People were whingeing that they’d paid £38million for him. What would he be worth now? The first five or six games, if you look, he missed more than he scored. He was letting the ball go all the way round on to his left foot. But I think with his confidence growing, I think he’s using his right foot more, even though he’s scoring with his left. He’s moving it from his right to his left instead of going all the way round. It’s that split second which makes the difference. And he’s taking them early so the goalkeepers don’t know. OWEN: His finishing has definitely got better. You always get asked whether finishing is natural or whether it’s practice. With him, I think the more chances he’s getting, the better he is getting. You need to find out what finishes work for you. At kids’ level, I’d get hundreds of chances and I found out very early that I hated going round the goalkeeper. I found what I liked doing and what I didn’t like doing. And then in a split second, you can choose the right finish. I think he’s making good decisions now and picking the right finishes. And he’s cool enough, because he’s getting that many chances and he’s not snatching at them.
RUSH:
The hardest thing to do as a striker is waiting. You have to wait until the goalkeeper makes the first move. If you make the first move, the keeper has one on you. It’s a waiting game. And as soon as a goalkeeper does make a move, you go. People say it’s natural and all that. But you can improve. OWEN:
I think it’s practice. You get put in situations in life and most of the time you’re put in a pressure situation you talk faster, or you tighten up, or clench your first, or your heart rate goes. A goalscorer can remain calm in a difficult situation. You can think clearly and you can make the right decision. It’s all about making the right decisions.
Whether you then have the technique to pull it off is what you’re practising all your life. Make a bad decision, and you might score one in 10. But if you make the right decision you might score six in 10.
It’s like in any walk of life. We’re not so special. In much more serious situations, when someone is dying, a medic can make the right decision under the most pressure there can ever be. And that’s just practice and being in the situation. Goalscoring obviously isn’t comparable to that in terms of its seriousness. But it’s an example of being under pressure and making the right calls.
RUSH:
I think it comes from mental toughness. We weren’t bothered what we missed, as long as we scored. You need a mental block to say: ‘Forget about it now. It’s the next one. The next one.’ And on a good day you’ll get three of four. OWEN:
I used to judge my performance on how many chances I got. And if I scored four or two or none, it didn’t necessarily matter so much. I’d wake up the next day in some cases and pick up a paper and it i would say: ‘Owen has a nightmare.’ I was like: ‘I got six chances yesterday! What are they talking about? No one else would have got six chances. I made this brilliant run or o I beat four players and missed.’
What everyone else thought was a negative, n me missing a chance, I would think: ‘Jeez, the timing of my run to get in front of him! OK, I missed m by a foot. But next time I’ll score it. But the hard bit is the timing.’ So in my mind I’d be thinking I’d played well. Then again, if I’d played c**p and scored in the last minute, I would think I had played well as well. This is serious!
RUSH: I think mentality is in your upbringing. I was the ninth child of 10. When you come from a council house in Flint, with six of us in one room, finding space in the 18-yard box was a piece of p**s! Believe me! OWEN: The amount of successful footballers who are the youngest! I was the youngest with two older brothers. You either give up and let your older brother win or you fight like hell every minute. And if you do that, you’re always striving. RUSH:
My brother is three years older than me. When I was 10, 11, I was playing with him. They were all very good local players. When I was 14, I was playing in a Sunday League with my brothers. And if someone booted me, they’d look after him.