Mohamed Salah has been hailed as “incredible” by Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler, with the Egyptian forward considered to have become more selfish in his pursuit of goals.
A man acquired from Roma for £36.9 million ($48m) enjoyed a stunning debut campaign at Anfield in 2017-18, with the target found 44 times across all competitions.
Those efforts earned him an enviable haul of individual honours, and he is back chasing down collective prizes this term.
Liverpool continue to look to him for inspiration as they remain locked in a Premier League title battle, with his 19-goal haul this season having seen him reach a half-century in the English top-flight in record-setting time.
“His record’s brilliant, it really is,” Fowled told the Reds’ official website.
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“When you watch him play you just know that you’re more or less guaranteed to get chances and obviously if he keeps getting chances he’s going to continue to score goals.
“So him getting to 50 Premier League goals, I think he was quicker than anyone in Liverpool’s history - and that in itself, when you think of the quality of the strikers and players we’ve had at the club, is incredible.
“The way he’s played up there hasn’t surprised me because I think you just knew that he was a good player regardless of where he played and you knew he was going to get chances.
“At times he does look a little bit unorthodox with the way he strikes the ball. I mean, he’s not as fluent as some strikers have been in the past in the way he strikes it, but that doesn’t really matter - he’s effective. I’m not surprised because you look at some of the goals last year and this year, he scores goals out of nothing.
“I think he’s a good player and, regardless, whatever era you look at, the good players can play anywhere. Clever players can play anywhere and he epitomises a clever player.”
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Salah has been deployed more centrally by Jurgen Klopp on occasion this season, with former frontman Fowler not surprised to see that move made in an effort to get even more out of a player who has shown signs of adopting a striker’s mentality.
An Anfield icon added: “It might be a case of other players or other staff like the manager saying: ‘You take the pens and we’ll help you score more goals, we’ll help you become a more rounded player.’
“He’s not unbelievably greedy or unbelievably selfish so I wouldn’t read much into it in that way, but I think his game has changed and he does look a little bit focused or a little bit more direct in terms of wanting to score goals and to be a great goalscorer. I think at times you do need to have a little bit of selfishness about you and he has got that.
“I’m not saying that’s a good or a bad thing, but if you look at all the great strikers of yesteryear - whether they played for Liverpool or not - they’ve always had that little bit of greed in them, so it’s good for him and it’s certainly good for us.”
