Gary Neville has made a suggestion about Liverpool star Mohamed Salah that will surely irritate the club’s fans.
Liverpool have been inspired by 43-goal Salah this season and are just 90 minutes from reaching the Champions League final.
The Egyptian has been in scintillating form for Jurgen Klopp’s side in his debut season at Anfield and is just goals off Reds legend Ian Rush’s longstanding goalscoring record.
Salah has already stated he is fully focused on breaking all records in his sights this season and winning the golden boot.
And he has been awarded the PFA Player of the Year honour as well as being named in the team of the year and even put forward as a potential Ballon D’or winner should Liverpool go on to win the Champions League.
But that man all Liverpool fans love to hate, former Manchester United star turned Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville, has suggested Salah could be a one season wonder.
Speaking on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football, Neville highlighted Salah’s goalscoring statistics over the last six seasons and pointed out the winger averages between 10 and 12 goals.
Neville accepted there had been a marked improvement at Roma, where he managed 19 before his move back to England with Liverpool.
But he highlighted Salah as his ‘one to watch’ for next season to see whether he can hit these heights again.
“Salah (would be my one to watch next season, just to understand whether this is an absolute freak,” Neville told MNF.
“Because what I’ve seen from Salah, and I’ve watched him back at Basel and in those seasons there, and obviously at Chelsea and you can see there’s a pattern there of (of goals scored) 10, 12, 9, 15, 19… yea they’re getting higher at Roma, it’s getting better… but then that is a jump out of nowhere, to leap from nowhere (to 43 goals and counting), you think where has that come from?
“You normally see players growing, and they get better and then all of a sudden (with Salah) it’s just boom, what’s happened? And I think to me the most intriguing thing about next season … is whether that player is that (40 goals plus) player or whether that player is a 20-goal a season player – which is still a really good player – or is he actually, where we’ve seen him in the last few weeks mentioned in the same light as (Lionel) Messi and (Cristiano) Ronaldo and winning the Ballon D’Or which will be an incredible achievement.
“If he goes on to score 43 next season and 40 the year after and 35s and he’s into those Ronaldo/Messi numbers then you can start to say ‘woah’.
“And that is the thing, is he that player or is he the player that we’ve seen the previous seasons which is between 10 and 20 goals?”
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