Mohamed Salah overtakes Man Utd icon with landmark Liverpool assist
- Mohamed Salah scored and created two goals during Liverpool's 5-0 thrashing of West Ham
- The prolific forward is also one of the Premier League's leading creators
- Salah admitted that he was "lucky" when setting up Cody Gakpo's goal
"Of course I think about it," Mohamed Salah once said when asked about breaking records, "of course I want it."
"But I set it for myself to make me work harder. As long as there is a target you are working for, that gives you a push to work better."
Each Liverpool match seems to present a new statistical staging post for Salah to surpass. A glut of records with varying levels of obscurity were toppled during a riotous 5-0 thrashing of West Ham United on Sunday.
Salah took his personal goal tally to 20 for an eighth consecutive season, a feat no other player in Liverpool's storied history has ever achieved. However, it was a pair of assists, teeing up Cody Gakpo in the first half before laying on Diogo Jota's game-sealing strike, which caught the eye.
Premier League stat | Mohamed Salah | David Beckham |
|---|---|---|
Games | 281 | 265 |
Goals | 174 | 62 |
Assists | 82 | 80 |
Titles | 1 | 6 |
The relentlessly prolific forward has now amassed 82 Premier League assists, taking him beyond the tally recorded by Manchester United legend David Beckham. The English icon made 265 top-flight appearances for the Red Devils (16 fewer than Salah), but can come nowhere near the Egyptian's absurd scoring haul.
By surpassing Beckham in the assist charts, Salah has joined a vanishingly small club of the most elite two-way forwards in Premier League history. The former Chelsea forward - once derided as a flop after a failed stint in west London - is one of only three players to appear in the Premier League's top ten scorers and assist providers of all time.
Chelsea maestro Frank Lampard (177 goals, 102 assists) and Wayne Rooney (208 goals, 103 assists), another United hero, share this lofty accolade with Liverpool's talisman.
Salah may have turned 32 on the eve of the new campaign but has scarcely enjoyed a better season in his career. Already boasting double digits for goals and assists - becoming the first player in the history of the Premier League to achieve such a feat before Christmas - even Salah's errant touches are working out for him.
The Reds' prolific winger slipped the ball between the legs of two West Ham centre-backs before teeing up Gakpo for Liverpool's second of the evening. While the prod to his Dutch teammate was deliberate, Salah later admitted that his first touch "was lucky".
Fortune seems to have favoured Salah on countless occasions throughout his Liverpool career, which brings to mind a quote from Thomas Muller: "Getting lucky all the time is a sign of quality."
Player | Goals (all-time rank) | Assists (all-time rank) |
|---|---|---|
Mohamed Salah | 174 (8th) | 82 (10th) |
Frank Lampard | 177 (6th) | 102 (5th) |
Wayne Rooney | 208 (3rd) | 103 (4th) |
READ THE LATEST PREMIER LEAGUE NEWS, RUMOURS & GOSSIP
feed