Jurgen Klopp hailed Mohamed Salah as a “super special player” after his 200th Liverpool goal helped the Reds to victory at Crystal Palace.
Despite falling behind to Jean-Philippe Mateta’s penalty, Liverpool levelled the game through Salah’s deflected strike and then went top of the Premier League table thanks to their injury-time winner scored by Harvey Elliott.
Salah’s goal was his 200th overall for Liverpool - he is just the fifth player ever to achieve that feat at Anfield - and his 150th in the Premier League.
“Pretty impressive”, Klopp said of Salah’s record. “That was pretty much the best moment to score it, to be 100 per cent honest. Incredible number for a super special player. I don’t know how many times he’s saved us.
Only the fifth player in the club’s history to reach 200 goals 👑
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) December 9, 2023
In just 327 games 🤯 pic.twitter.com/eoy7YDWZ7D
“It was a pretty loud reception in the dressing room when we gave him a shirt with the 200 on the back.”
Liverpool took until the 76th minute to score their equaliser through Salah, and that goal came within 98 seconds of a second yellow card for Jordan Ayew which saw Palace finish the game with 10 men.
Klopp said: “I’m a very happy manager at this moment, and I know we were lucky as well. Until the 76th minute it was a really bad [performance]. We had no timing.
"I don’t know how often we were offside. It was horrendous. I think at the beginning Crystal Palace were extremely high on confidence. It looked like that.
“They could have had a penalty in the first half. I didn’t see the situation. What we did from 76 [minutes] until 105, or whatever, that was really good.
"Everyone knows you can have more against 10 men than we had today. We just played better. But if Harvey mishits the ball then it’s a draw.”