Mohamed Salah on his way to Lionel Messi's level, says Jurgen Klopp
Sunday 18 March 2018 14:47, UK
Jurgen Klopp suggested Mohamed Salah is on the way to being compared with Lionel Messi after scoring four times in Liverpool's 5-0 rout of Watford.
Salah also created another goal for Roberto Firmino in a devastating display amid snow flurries and freezing conditions at Anfield.
Asked in his post-match press conference if Salah could be mentioned in the same sentence as five-time world player of the year Messi, Reds boss Klopp said: "I think Mo is on the way.
"I don't think Mo or anybody else wants to be compared with Lionel Messi - he is the one who has been doing what he's been doing for what feels like 20 years or so. The last player I know who had the same influence on a team performance was Diego Maradona.
"But Mo is in a fantastic way, that's for sure. As it always is in life, if you have to have the skills you have to show that constantly and consistently, and he is very good. He helps us a lot.
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"The boys love playing together with him, he loves playing with them so it's good. He gave us a good four goals. I think that's quite exceptional and another good performance.
"We had to cope and deal with difficult conditions tonight. It was slippery. Everybody suffered but not Mo in that situation. That is really special."
Watford offered little aside from a dipping free-kick from Roberto Pereyra that hit the bar when they were already 3-0 down.
But the result never seemed in doubt after Salah opened the scoring in the fourth minute as Liverpool bounced back from defeat at Manchester United in style.
Klopp said: "I am really happy about the result, of course, but also the performance because I knew after we made the analysis of Watford's last game, against Arsenal, how difficult it can be to play them.
"They lost that game 3-0 but it was so close, football games can go like this, but in the end we really saw what could happen tonight if we let them do what they wanted to do. And we didn't in very difficult circumstances, so I'm really happy."
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