Mohamed Salah marked his likely Liverpool goodbye by breaking another record | OneFootball

As the final whistle blew on Liverpool‘s morale-boosting win over Brighton, no cameras were trained on the two-goal matchwinner Hugo Ekitike or the relieved Arne Slot.

Instead, every single piece of recording equipment inside Anfield was focused entirely on Mohamed Salah. The thought of that attention ever being placed on ourselves is terrifying.

Happily, Salah is used to the limelight. But the furore since his infamous interview at Leeds last week, effectively walking the plank away from Liverpool, has been something else entirely.

Jamie Carragher spent seven minutes slamming Salah’s actions on Monday Night Football with so much intensity we were worried he’d forgotten to breathe at one point.

Seeing Carragher pull up Salah’s Chelsea record and lack of international silverware with Egypt, with one enterprising Twitter user setting the diatribe to the beat of Nas’ classic disstrack ‘Ether’, was arguably football’s biggest watercooler moment of 2025.

It’s also been headline news in Egypt, where legions of Salah’s countrymen have leapt to his defence in a style reminiscent of British media squashing any criticism of the Royal Family.

While the forward was excluded from the squad that beat Inter Milan on Tuesday, instead posting melancholy gym selfies, he was back in the set-up for the Brighton match.

And an early injury to Joe Gomez (a phrase which certain Liverpool journalists must have copied and pasted, always ready to go) allowed Salah his opportunity.

The home fans, perhaps sated by an early Ekitike goal or less marinated in social media-fuelled division, gave their hero a warm welcome. Those looking for animosity were left disappointed.

In truth, this was a Salah performance in keeping with the majority of his season. On several occasions, the 34-year-old wasted chances to score or set-up one of his team-mates. But it didn’t matter today.

Not just because Liverpool were comfortable winners, which was only their second home success in the Premier League since mid-September.

And not just because Salah did provide the assist for Ekitike’s second-half header.

It was his 277th goal contribution for Liverpool in the Premier League, breaking Wayne Rooney’s record for most goals and assists for a single club in the competition.

But because everybody inside Anfield knew that this was likely to be the last time Salah played for Liverpool.

He’s now due to join Egypt’s squad for the Africa Cup of Nations, a competition they will now surely win thanks to Carragher’s comments if the football gods have any sense of humour.

With the final scheduled for January 18th, Salah could miss up to a month of Liverpool matches.

That’s before considering the non-zero chance of him being sold anyway, with clubs in Saudi Arabia, America and continental Europe all circling.

Salah’s family were present for what the forward had claimed could be his goodbye to Liverpool.

His emotions were kept largely in check at the final whistle, but there were tears in Salah’s eyes as he applauded the adoring Kop.

Events will now take over, with the suspicion that Liverpool’s hierarchy would quite like to remove Salah’s £400,000 weekly wage from the books and replace him with Antoine Semenyo.

But today’s performance was all about drawing a line under Salah’s comments at Leeds. Neither the player nor the club could bear to depart on bad terms, after everything they’ve given each other.

Salah broke another record in what is likely to be his final Liverpool match. But numbers and accolades will only ever tell part of his story.