There are two basic ways Salah likes to unlock defences with the ball at his feet. This is about greatness - and that was still to come.
#HOPEFULLY MEME SERIES#
In other words, if you were reading a series on the Premier League’s very-good-est performances, this would not have been the entry for Mohamed Salah, who has countless other games that were cleaner and more consistent.īut good is beside the point. For an hour or so, Salah got nowhere near creating a shot for himself or anyone else. His passes couldn’t find a lane through City’s traffic, and even when they did, the weight and timing were off, or the run wasn’t quite right, and nothing much came of them. His dribbles were poked away or cut out with a well-timed shoulder. When he did get the ball, Salah couldn’t get around Joao Cancelo, the supposed weak link in City’s defensive line. The graphic above demonstrates how Liverpool struggled to get out of their half against City - Salah could receive valuable passes on the right wing but rarely found anyone to combine with. That left Salah without his indispensable partner on the flank and Thiago’s trademark left-to-right diagonals to put him into space from midfield. James Milner may be a lot of things - dependable utility player, ageless immortal, self-aware meme - but a like-for-like right-back replacement for Alexander-Arnold he is not. It didn’t help that they were missing their two most important ball progressors, Thiago and Trent Alexander-Arnold. Liverpool spent most of the first hour stuck in neutral, barely even able to get to the part of the pitch where Salah makes his money. How can anyone be good against Manchester City? They’re as inevitable as Monday morning traffic and tend to have the same effect on people: they crowd you, slow you down, cut off all angles of escape, and occasionally force you to listen to Oasis against your will. The distinction is important here because Mohamed Salah appears on our list of the greatest performances in Premier League history for a game in which, by his standards at least, he wasn’t very good.
![hopefully meme hopefully meme](https://birthdaybuzz.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/hairdresser-birthday-meme-media-tweets-by-jaycees-hairdressers-jaycees-hair-of-hairdresser-birthday-meme.jpg)
But to be sloppy or reckless and get the job done because you didn’t do it the usual way? That’s true greatness. To be good is to be safe, smart, successful, all the usual stuff we admire. Greatness, despite what you may have heard, is not the same thing as being very good. It’s a bit of fun, but hopefully a bit of fun you’ll enjoy between now and August.
![hopefully meme hopefully meme](https://images7.memedroid.com/images/UPLOADED613/5af24e5a41b7e.jpeg)
You might not agree with their choices, you won’t agree with the order. Picking 50 from 309,949 options is an impossible task.
#HOPEFULLY MEME FULL#
To celebrate 30 years of the Premier League, The Athletic is paying tribute to the 50 greatest individual performances in its history, as voted for by our writers. You can read Oliver Kay’s introduction to our Golden Games series (and the selection rules) here – as well as the full list of all the articles as they unfold.