Arne Slot hailed the “unbelievable” Mohamed Salah after the Liverpool striker scored his 250th goal for the club as the Premier League champions eased the pressure on their head coach with a 2-0 victory against Aston Villa.
Salah opened the scoring in a deserved defeat of Unai Emery’s in-form team after a calamitous error by the World Cup-winning goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez. Ryan Gravenberch added a second to end a run of four successive league defeats for Liverpool and lift Slot’s side to third in the table. Salah’s strike capped a vastly improved performance from the Egypt international.
“It’s huge,” Slot said of Salah’s latest Liverpool milestone. “It is almost unbelievable if you score 250 goals, let alone 250 goals for one club. You don’t see that much in football any more. Apart from the goal he had a very good performance. When we had to play long, we mainly played to him and he held the ball and the team could come to him. What I liked was that he also helped the team defensively as well. After the first goal he was helping Virgil [van Dijk] around the halfway line. I liked his performance tonight. For him to score is not special but 250 is special.”
Salah admitted he has not been happy with his performances this season but was adamant Liverpool will return to form after a summer of upheaval. “I said at the beginning it is a very tricky season for us, we have a few new players, very good signings, but they need time to adapt to the team and we lost a few good players as well. We just need time to adapt and know each other’s games and we will be fine.”
Slot thanked the Anfield crowd for singing his name at nil-nil and backing him through “a difficult moment” after six defeats in the previous seven games. He added: “I’m happy with what I saw not only from the players but also the support we got from the fans was what we needed. Maybe we were a bit more on the lucky side than we have been in the last few weeks, so a mistake from their goalkeeper and a deflection led to two of our goals, but these are the margins we are talking about.”
Unai Emery lamented the Martínez mistake that handed Liverpool the lead but took responsibility for it. The Villa manager said: “We try to play with personality and take good positioning. It was easy for Salah. It was a huge mistake but it is my responsibility and I accept it. We build a team here through the style we want through the club. We must avoid huge mistakes like today but it is part of our process and we are trying to identify how we build.”
