LONDON — Mohamed Salah said Liverpool’s veterans need another Premier League title after inspiring a 2-0 win at Manchester City to surge 11 points clear at the top of the table.
Salah was again Liverpool’s star performer as he opened the scoring with his 30th goal of the season before setting up Dominik Szoboszlai to double the lead before half-time.
“It is special. Especially when you are in the title race, it is incredible,” said Salah after Liverpool’s first league win at the Etihad for a decade.
Salah has moved level with Gordon Hodgson into third place on Liverpool’s all-time top goalscorers list.
“Me and the big guys in the team, we need another title,” Salah added according to AFP.
Salah has become the first player in the history of the English Premier League to contribute 40 goals or more in two seasons of the Premier League.
Salah became the third more than scored goals in the history of Liverpool in all competitions with 241 games, and Ian Rush is outperformed by 346 goals and Roger Hunt with 285.
Just days after exiting the Champions League to Real Madrid, this was another sobering defeat for the dethroned English champions, who are now 20 points adrift of the leaders.
So often during Pep Guardiola’s glorious reign, Liverpool have come up just short in English football’s great rivalry of recent years.
However, their time to match Manchester United’s record of 20 English top-flight titles now appears just months away in Arne Slot’s first season in charge.
“We work every single day to achieve this and it is three months of very hard work (ahead) to maintain this,” said Slot.
“It is important to understand why we are where we are.”
The landmark was achieved on Salah’s 387thLiverpool appearance, having arrived in June 2017 from AS Roma.
The Egyptian has been on the scoresheet on 180 occasions in the Premier League for the Reds, while firing in 45 goals in the Champions League, six in the Emirates FA Cup, five in the Europa League, four in the Carabao Cup and one in the Community Shield.
At the other end, City’s own Egyptian international showed his ability to finish, but Omar Marmoush had strayed offside before being played in by Phil Foden.
City winger Jeremy Doku was skipping past Trent Alexander-Arnold at will, yet the Belgian consistently failed to deliver a telling cross or shot.
Salah was not so forgiving as he raced onto a long ball over the top and teed up Szoboszlai to wrong-foot Ederson.
The final outcome could have been much more humiliating for City had Liverpool had been as accurate on the counter-attack after the break.
Curtis Jones had a third goal ruled out by a VAR review for offside after Szoboszlai just failed to time his run through the heart of the City defence.
Ederson was forced into a stunning save from Luis Diaz and only a brilliant last-ditch tackle from Abdukodir Khusanov denied Szoboszlai a second.
Marmoush scored a hat-trick in last weekend’s 4-0 win over Newcastle and remained a lively threat as he flashed another effort across the front of Alisson Becker’s goal.
Arsenal’s shock 1-0 home defeat to West Ham had eased the pressure on Liverpool, that had built after dropping points in two of their last three games at Everton and Aston Villa.
A trip to the Etihad has for so long been the stiffest test of all, but City’s defensive frailties were easily exposed and they also badly missed the presence of the injured Erling Haaland in attack.
