Now the reign of Liverpool’s Egyptian king is over. But if Mohamed Salah abdicated, he signed off first in style and then in tears. Not with the goal he surely wanted, though he was inches away from a 258th and last for Liverpool, but with a reminder the third highest scorer in their history was more than just a scorer, and then an illustration of how much he and they have meant to each other.
A moving goodbye was an imperfect one, with neither a win nor a goal for Salah, but it was laced with a touch of class. A cross that served as a reminder he has more than a century of assists for Liverpool showed that, while Salah was sometimes accused of selfishness – for his words off the field and his shots on it – he made plenty of goals for others.
