Mo Salah breaks Premier League record

Liverpool's Egyptian star, Mohamed Salah, has broken the Premier League record for the most goals scored in a 38-game season.

"The Pharaoh" scored his 32nd goal from having played in 36 games with his strike against Brighton on Sunday afternoon. And in doing so, he broke the record set by Alan Shearer in 1995-96, matched by Cristiano Ronaldo in 2007-08 and Luis Suarez in 2013-14.

Andy Cole and Shearer scored 34 goals each, in 1993-94 and 1994-95 respectively, when the Premier League season was 42 games long, before the reduction to 38 games per campaign.

Earlier this season, Salah succeeded Didier Drogba as the highest scoring African in English Premier League history, as well as already being named the top Arab scorer ever to play in England.

With this latest goal, Salah ended Harry Kane's two-season run as the Premier League's top scorer. Kane was aiming to become only the second player, after Alan Shearer, to win "the golden boot" three seasons in a row - but a young striker from Nagrig spoiled his dream.

Salah returned to English football last summer in a deal worth around £37million ($50m), having been sold by Chelsea a year earlier after 19 underwhelming games and two successful loan spells with Fiorentina and Roma. 

On his arrival, many commentators slammed him as "not prepared for the Premier League", or "too expensive for not a top class player". These pages referred to the signing as a "pretty big deal" - a prudent commercial decision, opening up lucrative broadcasting and merchandising opportunities in the Arab world's most populous country.

From the archive: Salah coming to Liverpool FC is a pretty big deal

Salah proved all of his critics wrong, winning multiple individual awards and helping Liverpool to qualify for the Champions League final for the first time in more than a decade.

Comment: Mo Salah is being exploited by Sisi's bloody regime

His accolades from this season alone speak for themselves:

- Liverpool Player of the Month (seven times)
- Premier League Player of the Month (three times)
- Players' Association Player of the Month (four times)
- Champions League Player of the Week (three times)
- The Players' Player of the Year
- Football Writers' Player of the Year
- Liverpool's Player of the Year
- Liverpool Players' Player of the Year
- Arab Player of the year
- CAF Player of the Year
- Selected for CAF Team of the Year
- BBC's African Player of the Year
- Premier League Top Scorer
- Premier League Player of the Season

All in all, the Egyptian exploded onto the world's stage this season - with direct involvement in 59 goals. This puts him up there with the biggest names in world football: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

The Egyptian now has 45 goals across all competitions this season, just short of Ian Rush's all-time record of 47 - though Rush played in 65 games in that 1983-84 season.

Salah has one game left to try and break Rush's record in this mind-blowing season - the Champions League Final in Kiev on May 26. Can the Magician of the Nile set yet another benchmark for Liverpool Football Club in what may be his biggest ever game?

Uri Levy runs the popular football blog BabaGol, which covers football and politics focusing on the Middle East. Follow him on Twitter, and read his blog here.