Jürgen Klopp was infamously unconvinced by the prospect of signing Mohamed Salah for Liverpool.

The German coach freely admits that it was the persistent badgering of the club’s analytics department which convinced him. “When we scouted him, we we saw a lot of videos, of Mo, we say this was not the finishing monster we see now,” Klopp later reflected.

Even those fiercely pushing for his signing could scarcely have predicted that Salah would have established himself as Liverpool’s third all-time top scorer. A swollen glut of goals has afforded the club’s “finishing monster” with plenty of options from which to select his favourite goal.

Given he has 245 to choose from, Salah can perhaps be forgiven for selecting two when quizzed by France Football.

The Egyptian international instinctively landed on his weaving run at home to Manchester City in October 2021. Tiptoeing through a cloud of sky blue shirts, Salah thumped the ball off the inside of Ederson’s far post from an ever-narrowing angle. The passage of time has softened the forward’s view of this scintillating strike. In the immediate aftermath of the 2–2 draw, he wasn’t fussed.

“It would be more special if we won the game but it is what it is,” Salah huffed at the time. “It’s a good goal but nothing much to say.”

The hard taskmaster did allow himself to savour his deft dink against the same opponents in April 2018. In the same interview with France Football, Salah was quick to also hail his nonchalant brilliance against Manchester City in the Champions League quarterfinals.

With Liverpool already leading the tie 3–1 on aggregate, Salah waltzed onto a loose ball inside City’s chaotic penalty area, skipping around Ederson with his first touch before sitting Nicolás Otamendi on the deck with an impish scoop.

Manchester City have been Liverpool’s chief rivals throughout Salah’s spell on Merseyside. The Reds have finished as runners-up to Pep Guardiola’s relentless outfit twice despite racking up points tallies which would have won almost any other league season in English football history. City may have finished the 2024–25 campaign 13 points adrift of Salah’s title winners, but that animosity remains.

“City will always be City,” the winger warned before going up against the Sky Blues last February. “They have one of the greatest managers ever and they have great players—they have played at the top level for many years, they won everything in the club. They are always going to be a strong side and they always can win a game at any time.”

After penning a new two-year deal at the end of last season, there is every chance that Salah will add to his catalogue of great goals against City and the rest of the division in the weeks and months to come.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Mohamed Salah Takes Aim at Liverpool Rivals When Naming His Two Favourite Goals.

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