With five minutes left of what can be a decisive victory over Manchester City, Mohamed Salah still hunted a ball over the right flank and struggles in frustration when he didn't make it.
Immediately his manager Arne Slot indicated that he had to reverse and close the Ruben Dias. Salah did without hesitation.
It is on the back of such a selfless and non -stints hard work and discipline that perhaps the most important victory of Liverpool's season was won.
We have seen a lot that has been impressive from Slot's team in the Debut Premier League season of the Dutch coach. Now we can add winning without the ball that everything.
Liverpool won this against their large modern rivals on the back of only 34 percent and the covered yards, won tackles, made and hunted, said everything for the collective wish that this team runs.
Salah personifies this in a way that he did not always have. The Egyptian has long been a sublime scorer of Doelen, a terrorer of the very best defenses, but now he is more than that. Now he is complete, a 32-year-old driven by a desire to prevail, a visceral need to make up for a large part of what has been there before during his eight seasons in Anfield.
That may sound a strange thing to say about a player who has won everything to win in club football. But something he said after this victory was simple and telling.
“We need a different title,” said Salah. “Me and the big boys in the team, we need another title.”
You see, pain is not written on the CV of a sportsman, but it is often there between the lines. For Salah there is enough spread over the medals and trophies of his years in Liverpool.
Pain against Real Madrid in two Champions League finals. In his dreams, he still has to feel the excavation of the Sergio Ramos -lleboog that ended his contribution to the first, in Kiev in 2018.
But perhaps even more important, the pain was supplied by those in Sky Blue, who helped his goal and helped to fall on this afternoon of contrasting styles in the Manchester Rain.
Despite all the glamor and style and rock and roll from the Jurgen Klopp years, Salah and the big boys to whom he refers to Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk-Hebben have won only a single competition title in Covid Darkness and Silence in 2020 , by their name, and that is due to the stranglehold that the city has had on English football in the past decade.
Liverpool ended with 97 points in 2019 and 93 points in 2022. They finished second seasons to the city. Thinking that this would not have hurt athlete like Salah, enough to keep driving ahead now is to misunderstand how professional athletes have been wired.
Certainly, there was an element of sports psychology in the game here in Etihad.
After he came from difficult matches against Everton, Wolves and Aston Villa with their lead at the top that is threatened by Arsenal, but also their own sudden uncertainty, Liverpool got an unexpected opportunity through the defeat of North Londers through West Ham on Saturday.
That result changed the mood and from the sudden weakness of Arsenal, Liverpool took a clear and clear force. That is how sport works. However, this has been propelled a team by more than a sense of opportunities and such zeal drips from their best player as a sweat.
In the first half that city dominated in terms of territory, Salah scored one goal and put the other on a plate for Dominik Szoboszlai. However, he was just as important in his own half and did what he could to help Alexander-Arnold in his difficult personal battle with city wing Jeremy Doku.
Without such an application of Salah and others, Liverpool would not have come close to winning this game.
Last night said that he had not considered the FA Cup loss in Plymouth Argyle, pulls Everton and Villa and a shaky home win on Wolves like Wiggle, but everyone who saw those games knew their truth. Those who played in it would have known it too.
Here the players from Slot took themselves out on the back of bloody spirit and grit. Liverpool even played without a center on Sunday. Slot had three on the couch. But with someone like Salah so devastating along his side of the field, inside and from both feet, it was not always noticeable.
For the second half, Salah exchanged a long -sleeved shirt for a short shirt. Even that seemed to bring a message: just warm up. More to follow.
It happened, the second 45 minutes were even more difficult than the first when Liverpool lived in their own half.
On TV they were talking about Liverpool with one hand on the trophy. That was desperate. One city goal would have confirmed the Etihad.
The home team has their own goals, their own fights to win, their own demons to banish. This was still City against Liverpool and some things don't change.
But the red wall of Liverpool was healthy. As time progressed, Salah became a permanent part of it. If this has to be his last season in Anfield, he can ever look back on his best.
In City, senior players have reached the top of the mountain and immersed it alarmingly on the other side.
Salah still climbs, his eyes on another top, further and relaxed up by a powerful and irresistible mixture of optimism and pain.
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