Mohamed Salah broke another Liverpool record on Thursday as the Reds hammered Sparta Prague, with the Egyptian attacker being held up in the ranks of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo

Mohamed Salah has become the first Liverpool player to score 20 goals or more in seven successive seasons.

But he still has a long way to go before breaking Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi’s records in the same category. Salah scored the Reds’ third goal in their demolition of Sparta Prague on Thursday night.

That goal was his fourth in the Europa League this term, added to the 15 he has scored in the Premier League the one he notched in the Carabao Cup, the Egyptian now has 20 for the season.

Incredibly that means he has reached the 20-goal milestone in each of his last seven campaigns. The attacker has also notched 13 assists, with nine of those coming in the top-flight and four in Europe.

But he needs to repeat that feat another two times to match Ronaldo’s record of nine. If he does so, Salah would also equal the efforts of Luis Suarez, who became an icon at Liverpool during his three years at Anfield.

But he has a long way to go before reaching Messi, who is out on his own with 13 successive seasons of 20 goals and 10 assists. Messi could extend that to 14 seasons if he has a successful season in the MLS this year.

Salah claimed his record just 10 minutes into Thursday’s game. Sparta tried to play out from the back but Bobby Clark outmuscled a defender to win the ball, with Salah racing onto it and curling a brilliant shot into the net.

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Lionel Messi has a record of 13 successive seasons with 20 goals (
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Brennan Asplen)
The Reds would go on to win 6-1 at Anfield, to set up a quarter-final clash with Atalanta. His achievement drew high praise from boss Jurgen Klopp, who hailed the Egyptian as an “outstanding player”.

“The stat is now not really surprising because he’s an outstanding player. Mo is a special story today because it was not the plan that he plays 90 minutes. Mo is experienced enough that he recovered already during the game,” he said.

“I told him not to defend anymore – I don’t think I ever said that to a player. By the way, Mo, that’s different on Sunday! I’ve worked seven years together with him, so one problem we never had was consistency.

“Mo is just delivering and delivering and delivering, his desire doesn’t stop. His quality is anyway there, but then his desire to score just doesn’t stop. He improved in so many aspects since he started here. He will not stop.

“So, I’m less surprised than maybe some others, I thought it had already happened, to be honest, in this season but he was injured for a while and that’s why he couldn’t do it [earlier] otherwise it would have happened in January or February. So, great, very good and, as I said, great to have him back.”