Salah and Firmino’s bond has Klopp on the verge of tears
Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp said the relationship between his attackers Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah almost brought a tear to his eye.
Regular penalty-taker Salah let the Brazilian take a 65th-minute spot-kick so that he could complete his hat-trick in the 5-1 win over Arsenal yesterday morning (Singapore time).
Had the Egyptian scored the spot-kick, he would have gone outright top of the English Premier League's scoring charts, ahead of Harry Kane and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Firmino scored twice in the first half to cancel out Ainsley Maitland-Niles' shock 11th-minute opener for Arsenal, before rounding off his treble from the spot. Salah and Sadio Mane scored the Reds' other goals at Anfield.
Said Klopp: "We knew in the second half that the game wasn't finished, so we wanted to control it.
"Mo Salah gave the penalty to Bobby and I almost cried because we all know how much Mo wants to score goals.
"It was really nice...
"In the moment, I was not too happy because in training, Bobby doesn't finish with penalties too often, to be honest.
"Obviously, today it was his day and absolutely OK.
"It worked, so it was one of the nicest things I ever saw in my life. Really I don't know a lot of players who would do that.
"When I saw him then celebrating with Bobby, that was then like 'wow'. Just outstanding. So far, the gesture of the season - really, really nice."
The Liverpool boss, however, again refused to entertain title talk despite his team having the third-best points total after 20 matches in EPL history.
Their haul of 54 is bettered only by Chelsea (55) and Manchester City's (58) title-winning teams of 2005/06 and 2017/18 respectively.
Former Reds favourite Robbie Fowler believes his former side have never been better poised to win their first league title since 1989/90.
He told the Daily Mirror: "Liverpool have never had a better chance of winning the Premier League.
"For obvious reasons, I keep getting reminded of the time in 1996/97 when I was in the Liverpool side that was top at Christmas.
"There's a big difference, though, between my team and the one that will head into the new year still leading the Premier League - and it can be summed up in one word: consistency...
"That's not a problem for Juergen Klopp's side."
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