Mohamed Salah’s goal against Manchester City on Sunday will be talked about for ever more. This won’t be the first or last article you read which makes reference to it.
What he managed to do against world class defenders in the tightest of spaces was simply incredible. Salah turned them inside and out and carved out enough space to fire an unstoppable shot beyond Ederson.
One less heralded aspect of the goal was how the Egyptian came to receive the ball in the first place. As it was a simple pass across a few yards, there’s little wonder it hasn’t been remarked upon to any great length.
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But it was the furthest forward Salah received a pass in the second half against City, and Curtis Jones had to escape the attention of the excellent Bernardo Silva to be able to make it.
In the context of the whole move it was clearly not the most significant aspect, but it did continue the increasingly potent relationship between Jones and Salah.
After all, five days earlier the pair had combined to put the Reds 3-0 up at Porto in the Champions League.
The credit was far more evenly split there too, with Jones winning the ball in the Liverpool half, carrying it forward and then finding Salah in space in the home penalty box. That he scored from there was almost inevitable, but him doing so owed plenty to the young midfielder.
While it’s early days for the 2021/22 campaign, the 'Jones to Salah' combination is the only one at the club which has more than one assist so far.
There may not be anything too notable in that, but Liverpool’s number 17 set up three goals for the best forward in the world last season, and that means that since the beginning of 2020/21 Jones has assisted Salah more than any other player has.
The first occurred in another emphatic European win on the road, with Atalanta the victims on that occasion. As Liverpool countered following a corner for the home side, Jones played a perfect long ball into Salah’s path which put him clean through on goal.
Three months later at the London Stadium, Liverpool’s match with West Ham United was goalless as the clock ticked towards the hour mark. Jones was brought off the bench and within a minute had driven forward with the ball and found Salah in the penalty area. He curled a shot past Lukasz Fabianski and the Reds were on their way to securing three points.
The final instance from 2020/21 was more like the Atalanta goal. It was more satisfying too, as it sealed a rare win for Liverpool at Old Trafford. Once again, the away side were on the break with the Jones and Salah partnership linking up to put their opponents to the sword.
This goal featured the third long ball assist the young scouser laid on in 2020/21, after the one for Salah at Atalanta and another for Sadio Mane against RB Leipzig. As the rest of the Reds’ squad got three between them in league and Europe, Jones is very clearly adept at feeding Liverpool’s pacey forwards in such moments.
And though he only has four goals to date in the two main competitions, the first of them was set up for him by Salah.
It occurred in a 2-0 win over Aston Villa as Liverpool concluded their 2019/20 season after the title had been secured. A cross from Andy Robertson was headed into the centre of the box by Salah and Jones latched onto the ball to fire a shot into the Kop end net.
Per Transfermarkt, the Egyptian’s only club colleague to link up with him to fashion at least six goals in fewer minutes than Jones was Xherdan Shaqiri (though Mohamed Aboutreika and Abdallah Said have done so in international football), so to be at that level before turning 21 is a decent achievement.
The assist against City was weighted far more heavily towards what Salah contributed rather than in favour of the pass, but it’s clear that the two players have struck up a very effective relationship in the last 12 months.
