The Egyptian King Bids Farewell: Mo Salah’s Nine Glorious Years at Anfield
With tears, a final assist, and a kiss to the Anfield turf, Mohamed Salah closed the chapter on one of English football’s most extraordinary careers — leaving behind 257 goals, eight trophies, and a legacy that will endure for generations.
Special Report
On the afternoon of Sunday, 24 May 2026, Anfield fell silent for just a moment — then erupted. Mohamed Salah, Liverpool’s greatest-ever goalscorer and one of the finest footballers to grace the Premier League, walked off the hallowed turf for the final time. He paused at the centre circle, dropped to his knees, and kissed the pitch. The crowd of nearly 54,000 rose as one.
It was the 74th minute of Liverpool’s season-ending 1–1 draw with Brentford — a game of modest league significance, yet one weighted with enormous emotional meaning. As Salah made that slow, deliberate walk to the touchline, both sets of supporters and every player on the field applauded in recognition of what the 33-year-old Egyptian had given not just to Liverpool, but to the sport itself across nine remarkable years on Merseyside.
Mohamed Salah had already left his mark on the match, teeing up Curtis Jones in the 58th minute for what proved to be Liverpool’s goal — a fitting final contribution in the red shirt. A first-half free kick had cannoned off the post, cruelly denying him the dream of a farewell goal. But no lack of a strike on this particular afternoon could diminish the grandeur of a Liverpool career like no other.
“I’ve cried more today than I have in my whole life.” — Mohamed Salah, speaking to Sky Sports, 24 May 2026
A Legend Departs
The farewell had been building for weeks. Liverpool confirmed in early May that Salah had reached an agreement with the club to bring his Anfield career to a close at the end of the 2025–26 season, a year earlier than his contract’s scheduled expiry. The announcement, delivered by Salah himself in a video shared across social media, was met with an outpouring of emotion from supporters around the globe. “Leaving is never easy,” he said simply. “You gave me the best time of my life. I will always be one of you.”
On the day itself, the Kop had already signalled the scale of the occasion before kick-off. A mosaic covered the famous stand, spelling out “Mo 11” in red and white. A banner strung across the terrace read: “We have gone from great to glory. Salah is our King.” It was not hyperbole — it was simply the truth.
Mohamed Salah’s teammates rushed to embrace him as he was substituted, including fellow departing icon Andy Robertson, who was also saying his own goodbye in his final game for the club. Together, the pair had been central figures in the most successful Liverpool era since the 1980s, winning a combined haul of trophies that had seemed unimaginable when Salah first arrived from Roma in the summer of 2017 for a then-club record fee of £43.9 million.
The Numbers That Rewrote the Record Books
The bare statistics alone would make Salah one of Anfield’s immortals. Across 441 appearances in all competitions, he scored 257 goals and provided 119 assists — a combined contribution of 376 goal involvements that places him beyond any direct comparison in the club’s history. In the Premier League specifically, his 191 goals across 314 games make him the fourth-highest scorer in the competition’s entire history, and his combined goals and assists tally is the highest of any player ever to play in England’s top division.
He claimed four Premier League Golden Boot awards during his time at Liverpool, with his 2024–25 campaign — in which he scored 34 goals and registered 23 assists in all competitions — widely regarded as his finest season in a red shirt. The Egyptian himself shared that view, calling it his personal best despite having rich competition from his extraordinary debut year, when he scored 44 goals in 2017–18 and was named PFA Players’ Player of the Year.
Slot’s Tribute: “He Was Always There in the Big Moments”
Head coach Arne Slot, who arrived at Anfield in the summer of 2024 to succeed Jürgen Klopp, spoke at length and with evident feeling about both Salah and Robertson in the days leading up to the final game. Despite a relationship that had grown complicated during the final season — Salah had publicly accused the club of being thrown “under the bus” following a spell on the bench — Slot’s tribute was generous and sincere.
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Mohamed Salah, Slot spoke of the Egyptian’s rare ability to deliver when games were on the line. “The amount of times when we needed a goal or we needed a moment of magic to win the game and he stepped up — that has been numerous times,” the Dutch manager said. “And before I was there, this happened also constantly. He’s right up there with one or two others to be one of the greatest that has ever played for Liverpool.”
Slot specifically highlighted a goal against Brighton at Anfield as among the most pivotal of the title-winning 2024–25 campaign. “Everybody thinks we outplayed the league and were every single time 10 times better than the other team, which was not true,” he said. “There were more than enough games where the game was even. This was one of them — but then Mo stepped up.”
“When he is around his teammates, around staff members, he is just a normal human being. And that is probably the greatest compliment.”
— Arne Slot on Mohamed Salah
Beyond the football, Slot painted a picture of a man who defied the expectations placed upon global superstars. “You don’t feel you are sitting across a superstar,” Slot reflected. “He’s very calm, he thinks really good about everything. He’s always interested in helping others. He put quite a lot of attention into Rio Ngumoha and other young players, helping them out.” He concluded: “I will always be very grateful to Mo and to the whole team that I could be part of winning the Premier League for Liverpool.”
A Trophy Cabinet Without Equal
Salah’s nine seasons at Anfield produced eight major trophies, spanning every major competition available to an English club. He was a central figure in the club’s first top-flight title in 30 years, won in 2019–20, and was equally pivotal in the second Premier League triumph secured under Slot in 2024–25. His Champions League winner’s medal from the 2018–19 triumph in Madrid remains the crowning jewel of a collection that is, by any measure, extraordinary.
A Difficult Final Chapter
It would be dishonest to pretend Salah’s final year at Liverpool was entirely harmonious. The 2025–26 season was, by his exceptional standards, underwhelming — seven goals and six assists in 26 league appearances before the final day marked a sharp decline from his 2024–25 brilliance. Relations with Slot had grown tense after a period of benchings in December, and a now-infamous media exchange at Elland Road, in which Salah said the club had left him exposed publicly, opened a rift that never fully healed.
The departure was therefore inevitable — but as Anfield roared its farewell, none of that mattered. Sport, at its most human, is defined by what is felt rather than what is reasoned through. And what the red half of Merseyside felt on Sunday afternoon, as Salah took his final bow, was gratitude without limit.
In the stands, former Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson watched from the Brentford dugout, having been named in their starting lineup for a poignant first return to Anfield. Henderson’s presence added an unexpected layer of nostalgia — a reminder of the generation of players who, alongside Salah, had transformed Liverpool into one of the dominant forces in world football.
“The club means everything. The people mean everything, the city means everything. I will always love this club. I will always support it. My kids will always support it — even when I leave, they say, ‘We love Liverpool, we’re going to support Liverpool.'”
— Mohamed Salah, post-match interview, LFCTV, 24 May 2026
Robertson Departs Too: A Double Farewell
The occasion was doubly poignant for Liverpool supporters, as Robertson — the club’s vice-captain and one of the finest left-backs of his generation — also played his last game for the club. The Scotsman, who had been at Anfield since 2017 alongside Salah, embodied everything Liverpool stood for under Klopp: relentless energy, total commitment, and an infectious team spirit. Slot was effusive in his praise, saying Robertson had been “in his prime, the best left full-back in the world” — and that he had even used a famous Robertson press clip to motivate his Feyenoord players years earlier. “If even the best left full-back in the world does this,” Slot had told them, “then it’s not too much to ask from you to try and replicate it.”
Together, Salah and Robertson received a guard of honour from the Liverpool squad after the final whistle — a spontaneous display of respect from their teammates that reduced many, including the players themselves, to tears. The images of the two men standing together in the Anfield centre circle, saluting a stadium that had given them everything, will endure as among the most moving in the club’s long and storied history.
Where Next for the Egyptian King?
The immediate question beyond the emotion is where Salah goes from here. At 33 and still demonstrably capable of competing at the highest level — his 2024–25 campaign remains the most productive single season any Liverpool player has ever had in terms of combined goals and assists — there is no shortage of interest from elite European clubs. Reports suggest Salah is keen to continue at the top of European football rather than embark on a lucrative move to the Saudi Pro League, with Champions League football a key priority. A decision is expected in the coming weeks.
For Liverpool, the task of replacing him is one of the most daunting in modern football. No single signing can replicate what Salah brought: not just the goals and assists, but the consistency, the longevity, the clutch performance in decisive moments. The club’s recruitment team will spend the summer working on solutions, but supporters know instinctively — as supporters always do — that some absences simply cannot be filled. They can only be honoured.
What He Leaves Behind
Mohamed Salah came to Liverpool as a player some had written off — a Chelsea misfit, an Italy-by-way-of-Egypt adventure that had not quite gone to plan. He leaves as the club’s all-time leading scorer in all competitions, the most feared attacking player in Premier League history over a sustained period, and one of the greatest footballers Africa has ever produced. He is, in the truest sense of the word, a Liverpool legend.
The Kop’s mosaic said “Mo 11.” The banner said he was their king. On Sunday afternoon, with tears streaming down his face as he left the pitch for the last time, Salah proved that he believed every word. Not with arrogance, but with love — for the city, the stadium, and the supporters who had made him one of their own.
Football will carry on. Liverpool will begin again. But for now, Anfield simply said: thank you, Mo. You’ll never walk alone.
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