Mohamed Salah's stunning slice of technical genius shouldn't be lost amid Liverpool's routine win
The Egyptian produced a sublime moment of technical quality and vision to help put the game to bed for Liverpool against West Ham United.
So routine, so run of the mill, so business-like and procedural in its execution. Such was the transactional nature of Liverpool's 23rd Premier League victory of the season against West Ham United on Wednesday night that there's a danger in skimming over a genuinely sublime piece of technical quality, taking it for granted because such occurrences have become so habitual.
When the end of season montage gets stitched together, Mohamed Salah's assist for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's breakaway goal here won't go down in the pantheon of iconic moments which have decorated this historic campaign, but it would be criminal if it were not featured. The Egyptian is renowned primarily for his goals and his pace, but it continues to go under the radar just how accomplished he is as a creative force as well.
There's this strange phenomenon with Salah, whereby he is so willing to take risks on the ball and make things happen, that fans will often get frustrated watching him surrender possession, either playing the wrong pass, dribbling into a sea of bodies or taking a shot from an awkward position when a team mate might be better placed. For a player of such calibre, he has a tendency to overcomplicate what look like the simplest things at times.
But bisect them he does, with an effortless flick off the outside of his boot, carving the two West Ham players apart with such panache so as to arc the ball with just the right amount of back-spin that it arrives in Oxlade-Chamberlain's path without him having to break stride.
Oxlade-Chamberlain then does superbly to bullishly shrug off the attentions of Lanzini before slotting calmly past Lukasz Fabianski, adding yet another classic, archetypal Jürgen Klopp counter-attacking goal to the collection, putting the game well and truly beyond the Hammers' grasp – not that they were ever truly in it at all. It was Salah's ninth assist of the season in all competitions, meaning no Liverpool player has provided more besides Trent Alexander-Arnold.
It's easy to lose such majestic moments amid such a straightforward and ultimately wholly expected victory, but that would be to treat the genius as the mundane.
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