Mohamed Salah spent some of his evenings during Liverpool ’s summer tour of the United States re-watching his performances in friendly matches, assessing where he could have done better. I chose this short anecdote to close Chasing Salah , my new biography about him, because it shows how his appetite for self-improvement — far from diminishing with age — actually seems to be growing. It is an attitude which could yet prolong his career at the highest level for longer than others, certainly those once defined simply by their ability to run very fast.
Advertisement It is regularly claimed that he has lost a yard of pace and maybe that is true. Yet does it automatically translate into a decline, or a lack of effectiveness? Few footballers care for themselves like Salah, who at 32 is a very different player from the one who arrived at Anfield as a red blur in summer 2017. Today, he is a better all-rounder — a forward whose understanding of the position means he is easily on course to break the 20-goal barrier for an eighth season in a row, and to carry on being a compelling creative force (as his two assists against Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday underlined).
Perhaps it is not hard to imagine Salah hunkered down in an American hotel room fixated by the small details from tour games whose results ultimately counted for nothing. He is viewed as an obsessive because his image is managed carefully through social media, where his life seems to involve a reliable routine of traini.