Liverpool should be allowed to indulge on a frivolous spending spree for one centre half because they got so much value on Mohamed Salah.
Signed for an initial €42m fee, Salah's transfer could rise to up to €50m and, already, he looks like he's worth every single cent.
The laughter has been silenced, the critics have backed off into the hedges and, all the while, Mo Salah is still scoring.
At 25 years of age, the Egyptian is ripping up the Premier League at the second time of asking and he's destroying the images painted of him when he was younger and ineffective tracking back on the wings for Jose Mourinho's Chelsea.
In 21 league games this season, it's a different story:
Salah is averaging a goal every 94 minutes in the league with Liverpool and, whilst it is glorious to watch him in full flow, whilst it's so obviously effective, the returns the club are getting out of him are incredible.
In fact, off all of the 22 goals that Mo Salah has been directly involved in across 16 different league games, he's helped Liverpool himself to nine extra points.
Without Salah's goals, Liverpool would be nine points worse off
(games in bold where Salah's goals directly earned points for Liverpool).
- Watford 3-3 Liverpool (Goal)
- Liverpool 4-0 Arsenal (Goal, Assist)
- Liverpool 1-1 Burnley (Goal)
- Leicester 2-3 Liverpool (Goal)
- Tottenham 4-1 Liverpool (Goal)
- Liverpool 3-0 Huddersfield (Assist)
- West Ham 1-4 Liverpool (Goal, Goal)
- Liverpool 3-0 Southampton (Goal, Goal)
- Liverpool 1-1 Chelsea (Goal)
- Stoke 0-3 Liverpool (Goal, Goal)
- Brighton 1-5 Liverpool (Assist)
- Liverpool 1-1 Everton (Goal)
- Bournemouth 0-4 (Goal)
- Arsenal 3-3 Liverpool (Goal)
- Liverpool 5-0 Swansea (Assist, Assist)
- Liverpool 2-1 Leicester (Goal, Goal)
In seven different matches, his goals have either won the game for Liverpool or rescued them from defeat.
And it's too easy to say that someone else would've scored them. Salah is bending in screamers, he's rinsing defenders, he's sharp and relentless and so obviously doing what only someone of his calibre could do. He's proving he was worth the money and not just filling in the space that someone else could've.
If you were being completely simplistic about it, Liverpool would have less points than Burnley if it wasn't for all the goals Mo Salah has come up with in clutch situations.
As it is, they're in the Champions League places, breathing down United's necks, and Salah is one goal off Harry Kane - one of the best strikers in the world being linked with a move to Real Madrid.
Value for money.
