Mo Salah shows up fallacy of nonsense ‘selfish’ jibes with wonderful gesture in Egypt victory | OneFootball

Mo Salah has had to face accusations of excessive self-interest during his time at Liverpool, but he proved on international duty on Friday that such jibes are simply untrue.

Graeme Souness infamously branded the Egyptian one of the ‘most selfish players’ he’d seen in 2024, while Jamie Carragher also used that unflattering adjective to describe the winger’s comments about the then-lack of a contract offer from the club last November.

However, the Reds’ number 11 showed that he’s anything but self-centered during his country’s most recent fixture.

Salah selflessly lets Marmoush score from the penalty spot

As highlighted by TNT Sports on X, Salah handed Omar Marmoush the opportunity to score from the penalty spot when Egypt took on Ethiopia yesterday, with the Manchester City striker duly scoring his first World Cup qualifying goal.

The Liverpool star had converted a spot kick of his own just five minutes previously, taking his tally for the national team to 59 goals in 104 caps.

(Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Not the first time Salah has done that, either

Reds fans will recall that this isn’t the first such gesture from the 33-year-old, who also stood aside from penalty duty to give Bobby Firmino the chance to complete his hat-trick in our 5-1 thrashing of Arsenal in December 2018.

Even with Salah having the opportunity to close in on a treble of his own on Friday, he sportingly handed the ball to Marmoush to score just his seventh in an Egypt shirt, a humble act that other world-class forward mightn’t have carried out.

It’s also worth noting that Liverpool’s number 11 has had an unusually fallow time in front of goal lately, scoring only three times in his last 13 games at club level dating back to the final two months of last season.

He’ll be yearning to atone for that famine by his standards when he returns to Merseyside next week, and with the Reds playing seven matches before the October international break, he’ll have plenty of opportunities to kickstart his campaign.

History has taught us that Salah goal droughts tend not to last long, and we don’t doubt that the Egyptian King will soon be terrorising opposition goalkeepers again in the coming weeks!