Arsene Wenger has been proved right about Mohamed Salah being "obsessed" after the Egyptian revealed his personal targets live on BT Sport.
The Liverpool star has enjoyed a fantastic season, but he revealed that he set himself a target of scoring 40 goals before the campaign got underway in August. He also targeted 10 assists, which he has already surpassed, but he will have to score 10 more goals to reach his lofty ambitions.
But his admission has proved just how much he cares about consistently performing at the highest level. That is exactly what Wenger noticed back in 2019, as he compared the Egyptian with Lionel Messi for being "obsessed" with finishing.
Wenger said on beIN Sports back in 2019: "He [Salah] has similarities with Messi. He must find the consistency of Messi. I find he's a good finisher but Messi has the complete thing, he gives the final ball as well.
"Salah is a bit obsessed with finishing himself. That's a dimension he'll get certainly, when he grows a little bit older, to find the moment when you have to give the ball and when you have to finish. But I like him very much, he has huge potential. Mane as well."
The Egyptian may not have scored against Villarreal on Tuesday, but he did assist Fabinho for Liverpool's first goal, which appeared to open the floodgates against the Spanish side. But Salah's assist tally has already been surpassed by quite a way, it's just goals that he needs to grab to reach his target.
In an honest admission to BT Sport, Salah revealed that he sets himself targets before every season, as he said: "Always. Before the season starts, I know what I want individually and collectively. Collective is the most important thing for the team.
"Still below [my target]! I have big expectations for myself. Honestly, I never said this before, but before the season I said ‘Okay, I will go for 40 goals this season and 10, 15 assists’.
“Now I’ve reached the assists I need to focus on the goals now! I think now Trent [Alexander-Arnold] is going to be angry because I have the most assists in the Premier League but I will go for everything."
And Salah clearly values being top scorer over creating the most chances, as he added: "Top assists is not something really big, top goal scorer is always something really big. Today, when I gave the ball to Fab it changed everything.
"Assists count for sure, goals as well. The team is doing unbelievable so let’s hope for the best. For sure [the quadruple is the target], for sure. Maybe not in the beginning of the season, I always focus on Champions League and Premier League, but now we are close for everything so why not?"
Liverpool are just six games away from completing the historic achievement, something that has never been done by an English side before. But incredibly in those six games, they have three competitions to battle for, with two finals coming up.
