'Extraordinary' Mo Salah stands tall and irresistible as Liverpool win in Spain

Perhaps the holders of the Liverpool purse strings who currently seem unable to agree a new deal with their striker might want to hurry negotiations along

Liverpool's Mo Salah celebrates scoring their side's third goal. Picture: Isabel Infantes/PA

For a man on the brink of history, Mohamed Salah could afford a wry smile as he pondered whether he would be allowed to hold onto a dramatic opening goal in the Wanda Metropolitano last night. After all, when you are generally considered the world’s current greatest player, you can afford to be relaxed about such matters.

The Egyptian, aiming to become the first ever Liverpool player to score in nine consecutive matches appeared to have done precisely that after just eight minutes only for replays to spark a debate over whether team mate James Milner, or defender Geoffrey Kondogbia, might have contributed a decisive touch.

But, regardless of how the record books will remember this particular goal and an entertaining collision between these two famous rivals, this - to paraphrase Dean Martin’s legendary old quote about his drinking buddy Frank Sinatra - is currently Mo Salah’s world and the rest of us are just living in it.

“The best player in the world,” said his manager Jurgen Klopp before kick-off; “extraordinary” offered his opposite number Diego Simeone.

Perhaps the holders of the Liverpool purse strings who currently seem unable to agree a new deal with their striker, who is reportedly looking for £350,000 a week to replace the contract that expires in 18 months, might want to hurry negotiations along.

Because, with every passing week of this golden run, Salah’s value and worth is, surely, rising exponentially with it as he proved when he struck his second of the night with an imperious second-half penalty, making it 12 goals in 11 games this season.

At 29, the Egyptian is certainly at the peak of his powers but it is the ease with which he is destroying defences in what are supposedly the world’s best two football leagues - the Premier and Champions - that has him on course to log a season for the ages.

And on a night when former Anfield favourite Luis Suarez was relegated to the substitutes’ bench by Simeone, it was a timely reminder that, while Liverpool fans venerate their favourites like few other football supporters, the Egyptian is rapidly gaining unparalleled cult status in the red half of Merseyside.

Suarez, of course, had an eventful spell at Anfield between 2011 and 2014 - a period worst remembered for the racist controversy that surrounded an on-field altercation with Manchester United’s Patrice Evra.

Still, his reputation among Liverpool loyalists remains largely undamaged and his omission from the starting line-up surprised even the visiting manager.

“I would have been part of the meeting when Diego told him,” joked Klopp. “Who knows why he’s not playing … but it’s still a strong team.” The issue of racism was also front and centre before kick-off when Liverpool players - plus, to their credit, Atletico’s Yannick Carrasco and Kieran Trippier - took a knee as an anti-racism gesture.

The vast majority of the home supporters met that statement with one of their own - loud boos and jeers - as a timely reminder of how much work football still needs to do in that realm.

Still, that could not detract from a memorable European night in which Liverpool were seeking revenge for their defeat at the hands of Atletico in the 2020 knock-out stages of the competition.

That tie was a painful reminder for Klopp of the dangers lurking in European football as his team which was, at the time, sweeping all before it came unstuck against Atletico and their brilliant, if volatile, manager.

The Anfield fixture, of course, had far more serious ramifications, taking place as it did just before the national lockdown in March 2020, with an MP’s report into the Covid pandemic this week revealing that 37 deaths could be traced directly to that fixture.

Much has changed, in football as in society since of course, although despite the way in which they surrendered their two-goal lead last night, this was a performance that suggested Liverpool are heading back to the sort of peerless form that saw them win the league title in 2020 and lift the Champions League trophy, at this same Madrid stadium, a year earlier.

More significantly, perhaps, after some indifferent times, it is not just Salah that is hitting vintage form; Roberto Firmino is back to his best of the title-winning season and Sadio Mane displaying the sort of consistency that has been lacking for months.

Manchester City may have more depth than their Mersey rivals but, as we are frequently reminded, they do not have a recognised, free goalscoring centre-forward in their ranks. Liverpool, surely, currently boast the most lethal front three in world football.

And, among them, as many defences are surely about to find out at home and abroad, Salah stands tall and irresistible.