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Mohamed Salah made history off the bench on his Liverpool return in a comfortable 2-0 win over Brighton as Hugo Ekitike’s double took the champions up to sixth in the Premier League.
Salah, restored to the squad following talks with head coach Arne Slot, was introduced earlier than expected, replacing the injured Joe Gomez after 26 minutes, and Anfield greeted him with big cheers, any ill feeling over his interview at Leeds forgotten.
Ekitike scored twice for the second league game running, but it was the Egypt forward’s impressive performance, in his final appearance for Liverpool before AFCON, that this game will be remembered for.
The Liverpool legend ended the game with an assist that takes him to an all-time record of 277 goal involvements (188 goals, 89 assists) for a single club in the Premier League, surpassing Wayne Rooney’s total for Manchester United.
Salah set up Ekitike’s towering header with a corner in the second half, ending a run of three league games without a goal involvement, and nearly ended this tense week in the perfect fashion, only to fire over late on from Federico Chiesa’s cross.
Liverpool were already in front when Salah came on after Ekitike scored the fastest goal of the Premier League season with just 46 seconds on the clock thanks to a poor Yankuba Minteh clearance pounced on by Gomez’s header to tee up the Frenchman.
Hugo Ekitike celebrates after scoring his second goal of the game against Brighton
Hugo Ekitike leaps to head Liverpool into a 2-0 lead against Brighton
Brighton’s Diego Gomez failed to convert two big chances to equalise either side of the break and was fortunate still to be on the pitch for the second, a sitter at the back post, having survived a VAR check for a high challenge on Florian Wirtz.
Liverpool made a potentially difficult afternoon look easy as they extended their unbeaten run in all competitions to five games to overtake Brighton in the table as they drop down to ninth after a third game without a win.
Salah stopped after the game to appreciate the home fans, singing his name all afternoon, but gave little away as to whether this could be his farewell game. The Liverpool icon has said goodbye for now and his future is expected to dominate for weeks to come.
Slot: Easy decision to put Salah in squad
Liverpool boss Arne Slot on Salah:
“He was a threat. The first ball he touched he almost gave an assist to Mac Allister who squared it, maybe it was a chance for him to shoot as well.
“He was constantly involved in the threat we had which was pleasing to see but also not a surprise because he’s done that many times in a Liverpool shirt.
“It was an easy decision to put him in the squad. I’ve said many times before, what’s been said between the two of us, for me, stays between the two of us.
“He was back in the squad again and we needed him because he was the first substitution I made. He assisted the 2-0 from the corner kick which is nice for us because we’ve been so many times on the wrong side of the set-piece battle. Today we scored one, didn’t concede and add that to our win.
“He goes to AFCON with Egypt now. That means we’re another player down and we already didn’t have a lot today. We knew before the season started that he would go and hopefully one or two players from injury can come back. Next week is Tottenham away which is a challenge in itself.”
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