A look back at Jurgen Klopp's comments on Mohamed Salah following his arrival from Roma in 2017 highlights the extent of his transformation at Liverpool. "I've followed him since he emerged at Basel and he has matured into a really good player," he said.
It did not seem an understatement at the time. Salah had excelled in Italy but returned to England as a so-called Chelsea reject with a point to prove. Klopp talked about him adding competitiveness in an area of the pitch in which Liverpool were "already strong".
It soon became clear he would do much more than that. In December of Salah's first season, after he had equalled Roger Hunt's club record of 23 goals before the turn of the year, Klopp was asked if he had exceeded his expectations. "One hundred per cent," he said.
It is no exaggeration to say his signing also altered the course of Liverpool's history. He is on 255 goals from 435 games, putting him third in the club's all-time scoring chart, and will surely add to that tally before his departure at the end of the campaign.
He has helped the club win as many league titles in eight seasons as they had in the previous 30 and that is before even mentioning the Champions League and six other trophies secured since he joined.
His exact position in the ranking of the Premier League's greats will continue to be hotly debated. But what is certain is that Salah has secured a place somewhere near the top of the list.
Only Alan Shearer, Wayne Rooney and Harry Kane have scored more goals in the competition. As a wide forward rather than an out-and-out striker, Salah is in fact a unique presence among the top 15.
He is also the only player to have won the PFA Player of the Year award three times, having clinched his third last term for an individual season that will go down as one of the best in history.
Salah amassed an astonishing 47 goal involvements, the most by any player in a 38-game season, as he inspired Liverpool's title triumph under Arne Slot. His goals and assists won them 38 points.
The size of his contribution in the Premier League across the nine years since his arrival at Liverpool in 2017 is unrivalled.
Salah ranks top in that timeframe for goals, assists, shots, open-play chances created and touches in the opposition box, the competition's outstanding scorer and creator.
There is a chasm between Salah and the rest in many of those categories. His combined total of 281 goals and assists puts him more than 100 clear of the next-highest player on the list in Heung-Min Son. The gulf is similarly wide for shots and touches in the box.
Remarkably, Salah has either scored or assisted a 39 per cent share of Liverpool's 717 Premier League goals across the last nine seasons.
His extraordinary talent flourished thanks to another super-power: his robustness. Since 2017/18, only Jordan Pickford and James Tarkowski have racked up more Premier League appearances than his 310. His work ethic has facilitated remarkable consistency.
Liverpool have fallen out of contention at the top of the Premier League at certain points over the last nine years but, until this season, Salah's individual output never dipped.
Even in his weakest campaign for goals and assists, in 2020/21, his combined total of 27 ranked as the third-highest of any player in the division behind Kane and Bruno Fernandes. He was the only Liverpool player in that season's PFA Team of the Year.
His managers deserve credit too. Klopp for platforming his success by moving Sadio Mane across to the left to install him on the right-hand side of Liverpool's attack, then building his side around him; Slot for reducing his off-the-ball responsibilities in order to maximise his impact in the final third last season.
Few anticipated that the contract he signed in the penultimate month of that season would end up being shortened by a year. But Salah has set such extraordinarily high standards that the dip, when it finally came, was impossible to miss.
Salah has not been helped by the upheaval around him, including the loss of Trent Alexander-Arnold, whose service he cherished. But age has taken a toll too. Salah is only three months from his 34th birthday. A downward trajectory is to be expected.
It appeared he might not get the Liverpool send-off he deserved after the explosive fallout with Slot that followed the loss of his place in the team in the first half of the season.
But Salah's reintegration after the Africa Cup of Nations changed that, giving him the chance to go out on a high, after nine years in which he has been in a league of his own, transforming Liverpool's fortunes and carving out his own route to greatness.
