Mohamed Salah replaced an unsettled week with a decisive contribution from the bench at Anfield on Saturday, delivering the assist that moved him to 277 direct Premier League goal contributions for Liverpool. That figure takes him ahead of Wayne Rooney\u2019s 276 for Manchester United and sets a new competition record for the most goal involvements by a single player at one club.<\/p>\n
The milestone arrived against the backdrop of a fractious week. After watching the draw with Leeds United as an unused substitute, Salah conducted a seven-and-a-half-minute interview that criticised elements of the club and invited family to what he suggested might be his last appearance at Anfield. Arne Slot then omitted him from the squad for the Champions League win over Inter.<\/p>\n
Reconciliation talks followed and Salah was named on the bench for the Brighton visit. An early injury to Joe Gomez, Conor Bradley\u2019s suspension and Jeremie Frimpong\u2019s absence led to Dominik Szoboszlai being used at right back and opened a wing opportunity that Salah filled.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old showed restraint in front of goal but produced a decisive pass, recording his 88th Premier League assist for Liverpool. Combined with his 189 top-flight goals for the club, that assist completed the 277 contributions that now sit at the top of the single-club list. For context, the top five reads: Mohamed Salah 277, Wayne Rooney 276, Ryan Giggs 271, Harry Kane 259, Thierry Henry 249.<\/p>\n
Rooney had publicly urged Slot to drop Salah a week before the manager first named him on the bench against West Ham in November, and he responded to Salah\u2019s interview with a sharp assessment. \u201cIf anything, he has thrown Liverpool under the bus with his words,\u201d Rooney said.<\/p>\n
Salah\u2019s long-running tensions with the English media, including exchanges with Jamie Carragher, are well known. Delivering this record contribution at Anfield after a turbulent seven days will be viewed as a significant personal and sporting vindication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Salah returned from a row to assist at Anfield, reaching 277 Premier League goal contributions. Sat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5074,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[1305,1304,1215],"class_list":["post-5075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}