The Liverpool Goal Machine Tearing Up English Soccer

Mohamed Salah has grown accustomed to being called washed up.

- By JOSHUA ROBINSON

It might seem strange in retrospect-now that Salah is the deadliest striker in the English Premier League-but before he was a Liverpool superstar, he was a serial bust. A decade ago, when the Egyptian forward was at Chelsea, his days in English soccer seemed finished right as they began. Salah was so ineffective that the club loaned him out to Italian teams twice in two seasons.

Then, once he moved to Roma permanently, he was viewed as a good-but-not-great winger who wasted as many scoring chances as he converted. By the time Liverpool signed Salah for more than $50 million in 2017, the club's American co-owner, John W. Henry, couldn't quite believe how much he was paying for him.

"It seemed like a lot of euros at the time!" Henry said in a 2018 interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Even last season, despite years of wild success in the Premier League, Salah had fans asking whether he was past his prime. He posted his lowest goal tally since joining Liverpool. He often looked visibly frustrated. And with the club preparing for life under a new head coach, Liverpool appeared ready to do the unthinkable: Ship Mo Salah out the door.