Former Liverpool striker Michael Owen delivered an impassioned speech explaining what sets the Salah apart from his peers.
While Owen remains a polarizing figure among Liverpool supporters due to his moves from Anfield to Real Madrid and Manchester United, his status as the 2001 Ballon d’Or winner gives him a relevant perspective on Salah’s greatness.
The legendary striker acknowledged that while his own consistency didn’t match the longevity displayed by Salah, he offered insight into why the Egyptian forward remains such an influential figure at the age of 32.
For two minutes straight, Michael Owen spoke about Salah on the Premier League world feed saying, “The reason he’s like that is what’s between his ears. All the greats, all the champions, they are wired differently to the rest. People can all say, ‘I want to be the best player in the world, I want to score goals.’ Of course you want to, course you want to, but some people just do it and have the mentality to do it and have that eye of the tiger to do it.”
Mo Salah believes and knows he’s the best player in the world. And it’s not that he thinks it or he wants it or he hopes for it, he does it and lives it.
Owen continued, “Every single breath that they take, every single time they go to bed, every time they sit at the meal table, it’s an obsession. Whatever they’re doing, whatever they’re fuelling their body with, whatever rest they’re taking, whatever they do, they can’t do it without being obsessed with what’s next, when’s the next training session, how am I going to get better, when’s the next match, how am I going to recover to get fit for the next one?”
“All of these things and he lives in the gym. He lives for breaking records, he lives for scoring goals and that feeling it gives him. He lives for winning things and everybody thinks they do. Everybody thinks they do but they don’t. You know, he absolutely lives for it and his mentality is to be the absolute best, and he believes he’s the best.”
“He thinks he’s the best in the world, no question about it. It’s for us lot to debate who is, and people up and down the country and all around the world to debate what we think and it’s assisted by numbers. But in his own world, Mo Salah believes and knows he’s the best player in the world. And it’s not that he thinks it or he wants it or he hopes for it, he does it and lives it.”
The ex-Galactico concluded, “And when everybody else thinks they’re doing it, they’re not. He is absolutely on it, 24/7, and when he retires he will realise it himself, that he was different to everybody else. But until that day he just thinks, ‘This is it’, and he’s just tuned in that way.”
Salah will close out 2024 with an astonishing 29 goals and 23 assists, totaling 52 goal contributions across the calendar year. According to Opta, this figure means Salah ends the year with the most goal involvements across Europe’s top five leagues, surpassing Harry Kane (50), Kylian Mbappe (49), and Vinicius Jr. (46).
Notably, Omar Marmoush closes out a magnificent calendar year, joining Mo Salah in the top 10 goal contributions across Europe’s top five leagues, with a total of 37 goals and assists.