The Five Best Liverpool Goals Since 2017
Mohamed Salah scored a fantastic goal as Liverpool beat Bologna 2-0 in the Champions League. But is it one of the best by the Reds in his time at the club?
The most humdrum of football matches can be massively enlivened by a fantastic goal. Liverpool have proved that before and did so again in beating Bologna 2-0 at Anfield in their latest Champions League match.
The Reds defeated Porto by the same scoreline in 2021. Can you remember anything about that game other than Thiago Alcántara’s physics-defying long range goal? Put your hand down if you said yes.
Where it was rare for him to add his name to the score sheet, Mohamed Salah pops up rather more often. It was he who brought the Bologna clash to life, providing an excellent assist before scoring an even better goal.
His best ever effort for Liverpool? Probably not. Danger and drama adds something, whereas this occurred in a low key match. Aesthetically pleasing it was, against Everton or Chelsea or Manchester United (again, and again, and again and) it was not. Rivalry carries value.
Picking a best goal is an impossible debate to settle, as fun as it is to reminisce about such wonderful moments. Plenty of other players have scored fantastic strikes for the club too; the Reds virtually held their own Goal of the Season contest against Fulham last season, for instance.
Around these parts, we can use data to settle inform the conversation. As well as traditional expected goals with which you’ll be familiar, Opta has a post-shot model. This accounts for the placement of the shot within the goal frame, with efforts into the top corner obviously scoring more highly than one straight at the goalkeeper.
Salah’s goal against Bologna was hit from 18-yards out, with the chance rated at 0.08 xG. It flew beyond the reach of Łukasz Skorupski to register as 0.79 on the post-shot Richter scale. The Egyptian’s beautifully curved finish added 71 per cent to the likelihood of a relatively low quality opportunity becoming a goal. All the best, Łukasz.
FBRef has this data for 747 Liverpool goals scored in league and Europe since Salah’s debut at Watford in August 2017. The strike which made him the highest scoring African player in the history of the Champions League just misses out on the top five for value added via finishing, landing joint-seventh. Here are the ones which the data says were better goals. Disagree? Take it up with Opta.
Joint-Fifth (0.73): Luis Díaz vs. Bournemouth, September 2024 & Diogo Jota vs. Burnley, December 2023
We begin less than two weeks ago with a possibly controversial inclusion. Is a finish that good if you’ve taken a wandering goalkeeper out of the equation? Equally, Luis Díaz deserves credit for doing that, as it certainly makes a goal significantly more likely.
The Colombian has a share of fifth place alongside a Diogo Jota goal from Turf Moor. His strike makes the cut as he fired home from an acute angle, finding the far post when inside the six-yard box. A relatively rare feat, it brings the man many would consider to be Liverpool’s best finisher of recent years into the reckoning.
Fourth (0.75): Cody Gakpo vs. Manchester United, March 2023
A goal from a tight angle against the Clarets is one thing, making David de Gea look like some bench-warming third choice shot stopper is rather more impressive.
Even without statistics making the choices, Cody Gakpo’s second goal in the 7-0 (SEVEN! NIL!) victory over United is a worthy contender anyway. It sent an already delirious Anfield into orbit.
If anything, Gakpo’s smile after scoring undersold the delight his fabulous goal unleashed.
Although we’re here to talk finishing, the build-up to this goal was also wonderful, with Salah twisting Lisandro Martínez’s blood so badly that he had to miss school the next day. It was a Sunday afternoon in which almost everything went right for Liverpool. How Erik ten Hag has survived another 18 months after this shellacking remains a mystery.
Bronze Medal (0.76): Mohamed Salah vs. Everton, December 2017
Assists come in all shapes, sizes and values. Both Dejan Lovren and Joël Matip have registered one in a Champions League final. Joe Gomez only has nine assists for Liverpool, yet one of them set up a Puskás Award winning goal.
The defender played a decent, first-time pass into the penalty area, from where a player in his remarkable debut Reds campaign took over. Salah won the Puskás prize in 2018, beating nominated goals from the likes of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and - yes, you guessed it - Lazaros Christodoulopoulos.
All it took was two completed take-ons plus a wonderful strike into the opposite side of the goal in a Merseyside derby. But it was against Jordan Pickford, he wouldn’t have reached a shot that went far closer to him anyway. There’s no harm in making sure, though.
Silver Medal (0.79): Andy Robertson vs. Wolves, May 2022
You were all waiting for this one, weren’t you? Not exactly. There is no sadder win than one which means you can’t rein in the club ahead of you, their own victory ensuring they win the Premier League by a point for a second time. Misfortune, carelessness, whatever, it’s painful.
Much as mediocre games can be remembered by fantastic goals, fantastic goals can be forgotten due to the circumstances mentioned above. The issue here is that the strike from Andy Robertson doesn’t appear that special anyway. Sorry, Robbo.
Once again, it’s an instance of a player firing into the opposite corner of the goal from a relatively tight angle. The Opta model must stan for these kind of finishes. It wouldn’t have felt right if data had deemed this Liverpool’s best goal in the Salah era. Fortunately, the man himself rode to the rescue.
Gold Medal (0.83): Mohamed Salah vs. Manchester City, October 2021
In the early months of the 2021/22 season, Salah was the best player in the world. He benefited from having had a summer off when many of his opponents had been at the Copa America or European Championship.
(I was hoping for something similar to occur this season for the same reason. There’s another three years on the clock now, though).
Salah scored eight goals in his first eight appearances of that season, only failing to find the net in one of them. Add in a couple of assists and the Egyptian had delivered an absurd 1.31 goal contributions per 90 minutes prior to the visit of Manchester City.
He showed no sign of letting up his prodigious output, playing in Sadio Mané for the opening goal. Phil Foden equalised, allowing Salah to take centre stage seven minutes later.
Just as Gomez picked up a freebie assist against Everton, so Curtis Jones did here. The latter had to thank Salah for an additional take-on, though, with the then 29-year-old dancing past Bernardo Silva, João Cancelo and Aymeric Laporte on his path towards goal. Fan videos were made which highlighted the value of the players Salah left for dead, to mock City and their *REDACTED* funded team.
In the opinion of Transfermarkt, the trio were worth a combined €170m at the time. The Liverpool number 11 embarrassed them, before whipping a shot past Ederson (which adds another €50m to the tally). In Opta’s opinion, it is the most impactful finish by a Reds player leading to a goal since Salah joined the club.
And that’s with him turning a tough shooting position into a virtually un-saveable 0.97 post-shot xG effort, never mind the tiny likelihood of scoring from where he collected the ball. It’s very hard to argue against it being Liverpool’s best goal since 2017 no matter how you pass judgement.
If you have a suggestion for a better finish by a Liverpool player in the last seven years, pop it in the comments and we’ll see what the data says.
My friends and I had spent the summer chatting about “The Best Goal” from the Klopp Era but came up with a list “full of emotional ones ” like you suggested. But the Gakpo and Salah City goals were on our list, too.
I’d wonder about the Salah Spurs goal that so resembled the City goal. It should have been the 2-1 winner that day. But Jon Moss found it in him to give Tottenham two pens in the final 20 minutes. (During a period where we had 1 Anfield pen for 18 months?)
I'm guessing the Alisson-to-Mo goal against Man Utd that set off "We're going to win the league" won't register very high on these metrics because the situation outweighs the finish. That's my favorite goal of this era though. The standings, the rival, the audacity of the pass, the celebration from everyone.
And I imagine Opta doesn't factor in Bobby's no-look technique for difficulty either!