Farewell to Salah, Liverpool's 'Egyptian king'

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Perhaps the fullest realisation of what Mohamed Salah has achieved at Liverpool will only come with time.But as he prepares to say his goodbyes on Sunday, there is plenty to appreciate and admire in the here and now.There are the standards Salah helped to set that emanated through the club in his and Liverpool's quest for greatness.Then there are the records he broke and the trophies his goals brought to Anfield.Above all, there is the sheer joy he brought and the memories he provided."He [Salah] set completely new standards for a professional football player - how hard you can work, how much you can invest in recovery and everything," Jurgen Klopp told BBC Sport in March.Klopp was the manager when Liverpool signed the Egyptian from Roma in 2017 for £34m.The deal was questioned because of Salah's previous struggles with Chelsea in the Premier League, but those who scouted him for Liverpool were convinced.Yet even they - the scouts, Klopp, everyone involved - could not have anticipated how Salah would become an all-time great.His haul of 257 goals for Liverpool has pushed him past the likes of Sir Kenny Dalglish, Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard. Salah keeps the receipts, as some would say.Aside from building his formidable physique, one of the biggest changes through his time at Liverpool has been his focus on becoming a more positive person and simply trying to smile more when things have not gone well.Such a shift came about after Andy Robertson, who joined in the same summer, encouraged Salah to work on his body language.Yet there was hardly astonishment from those at Liverpool when Salah had his outburst at Leeds in December, when a place on the bench for a third successive game hurt him.He had started 53 Premier League games in a row before that spell as a substitute, which ultimately signalled the start of the end and the ugly breakdown of his relationship with head coach Arne Slot.It reached the point where Slot and the Liverpool hierarchy were more than fine with Salah terminating his contract a year early, to leave on a free this summer.This has undoubtedly been a difficult campaign for so many of the current Liverpool squad, with Slot describing it has toughest season "by a mile".Like others, Salah was deeply affected by the death of team-mate Diogo Jota in July."Until yesterday, I never thought there would be something that would frighten me of going back to Liverpool after the break.

Team-mates come and go but not like this," Salah posted last summer.To watch Salah cry at Anfield in front of the Kop in Liverpool's first game after Jota's death was a reminder that he is as human as the rest of us.On the football pitch, of course, he did things that were truly out of the ordinary.At his peak, Salah came as close as anyone to reaching the levels of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in their prime.In his debut season at Liverpool, he provided a combined goals and assists tally of 58, averaging one goal involvement every 71 minutes.Last season, he delivered 57 goal involvements - one every 79 minutes. No player has more goal involvements (283) for one club in the history of the Premier League.It would be easy to focus only on the numbers because they are extraordinary.More than anything, though, it is about the memories.For Klopp, the standout shared moment is winning the Champions League final against Tottenham in Madrid in 2019, a year after Liverpool had lost to Real Madrid in Kyiv.That triumph seven years ago delivered the first trophy Klopp and Salah both won at Liverpool.I recall talking to a Liverpool fan who said he had never watched replays of Salah's second-minute penalty against Tottenham or Divock Origi's late clincher because he didn't want to tarnish the memory of how it all felt inside the ground.Salah was part of a side that made them feel that way.There was the goal against Everton that won the FIFA Puskas Award in 2018 and the chip against Manchester City in the Champions League.

We always struggled against Liverpool and Pep [Guardiola] and us knew about the capacity he had to score from any situation."Whether he was celebrating a goal with his shirt off or bowing down in Sujood - the Islamic act of prostration - there are images of Salah that will never be forgotten.For a generation of Liverpool supporters, he will always be the greatest."The legacy speaks for itself - the numbers, the trophies. the way he set a culture and a standard under Klopp," former Reds captain Gerrard told BBC Sport."Speaking as a fan, we all appreciate what he's done. Our fans deserve it and we will fight like hell."He and Liverpool delivered on the promise.Salah's 2024-25 season will go down as one of the finest in the history of English football, as he achieved the most goals and assists in the Premier League during that campaign on Liverpool's journey to a 20th title.Maybe it is timely too that he has struggled in his final season - to highlight the incredible heights he scaled previously.A return of 13 goals and 10 assists would be solid enough for some, but it is nothing really compared to Salah's previous campaigns.Yet Salah knows full well that he has already made history and earned legendary status.