Is Salah Africa's greatest Premier League player ever? twitter facebook reddit twitter facebook reddit

Despite standing at only 5ft 9in, Salah has never been one to require protection or coddling.

Instead, over the course of his four years at Liverpool, the Egypt international has made sport of preying on opposing defences, just as happy scavenging as chasing down his quarry with bounding fury.

The result is a reputation as fearsome as that of just about any other attacker in world football, and a proud record that will only swell, especially if, as reported, Liverpool break their wage structure to keep their prize asset at Anfield.

And why wouldn't they?

Not only has he proven an inspired signing with his menace in front of goal, but his volume has proved decisive in terms of silverware. With Salah never dipping below 20 goals a season since arriving from Roma, the Reds ended a 30-year wait for a league title and won the Champions League to boot, establishing themselves once again as a leading force in domestic and European football.

If ever there was a player to go over and above for - even to the extent of overlooking the fact he is on the cusp of the age-curve decline - it would be the jet-heeled Egyptian attacker.

As if his lustre needed any further burnishing, by virtue of his goals against Watford, the 29-year-old now stands alone as the highest-scoring African international in the history of the Premier League.

Eclipsing the likes of Didier Drogba, Emmanuel Adebayor and Yakubu Aiyegbeni is no mean feat considering the careers they had, and so in light of this momentous achievement it is only natural to consider his standing, not just in the Liverpool squad, but in the pantheon of the continent's legends that have done it on English shores.

There is of a danger in discussions such as these of inordinately weighting the argument in favour of the attacking players.

Of course, football is primarily about scoring goals, and so that naturally counts for a little more.

That said, the division has been home to some superb defenders and midfielders of African extraction - from Lucas Radebe and Kolo Toure to Michael Essien and Yaya Toure - all of whom merit a place in the discussion, and whose legacy in England's top flight is both significant and epochal.

However, there is a far longer history of prolific African forwards in the Premier League, their robust physicality and speed perfectly fitting the image the league has of itself and so magnifying their impact. That so clearly puts them at the front of the queue.

Drogba best embodied this (despite being relatively underwhelming in terms of his seasonal goal output), crafting a bogeyman image on the back of flick-ons, hold-up play and aggressive centre-forward play.

Yakubu and, to a slightly lesser extent, Adebayor were broadly of the same profile, and so are similarly iconic as much for how they played as their actual numbers.

In that way, Salah is so different from what came before as to be both significantly more dangerous and somehow less frightening.

Part of that is the sheer novelty of what he is doing and how he is doing it: there is no mythos to draw from, no precedent (at least within the context of the Premier League) for a nominal left-sided forward producing remarkable numbers while combining unbelievable core strength, balletic balance, searing speed and the dexterity of a puppeteer - simultaneously in control of both his own movements and those of his opponents.

In that way, he is a pioneer - something new altogether, a vista on what is possible.

Whereas the demands of European football have often sought to force African imports into moulds, Salah has emerged as a unique weapon, in a category completely separate.

This otherness has been buttressed, not just by goals of various types, but by a degree of consistency few other Africans in the history of the Premier League have been able to match.

Yakubu perhaps most closely rivals him, but performed at a much lower level with Portsmouth, Middlesbrough, Everton, and Blackburn Rovers and had time out due to injury.

Yaya was instrumental in Manchester City's rise, but only truly had three or four seasons playing at his strongest level. Drogba started slowly and then had the great mixed in with the middling.

There are caveats all over the place, expect with Salah.

If he is not already regarded as Africa's greatest ever Premier League player, it is because history is often best appreciated in hindsight.

We may never truly grasp the sheer scale of what Salah has done and is doing until he is no longer doing it.

Only then, with the benefit of being able to look back on his legacy as a completed work, will there be a proper acknowledgment of his greatness.

In the meantime, his goals will plead his case far better than any words or arguments can.