Liverpool, Jan 22, 2025, IANS

Liverpool, Jan 22 (IANS) Mohamed Salah has taken his goalscoring tally for Liverpool in European competitions to 50 in 2-1 Champions League win over Lille. The Egyptian reached a half-century by opening the scoring at Anfield on Tuesday night. Salah, who is the club's all-time record scorer in European competitions, reached the milestone by adding the finishing touch to a Curtis Jones through ball in the 34th minute. That was his 45th strike for the club in Europe's premier competition, arriving on his 73rd appearance. Salah's other five goals came from nine outings in the Europa League last season. The forward now has nine more European goals for Liverpool than previous record holder Steven Gerrard. Asked about his reaction to achieving the feat, Salah told Amazon Prime Video: "Hopefully (I'm) not the last one but it's something I'm very happy and proud about – and especially because we won the game, so that's the most important thing." Meanwhile, Liverpool alao set a new club record for their longest spell without conceding a goal in European competition. A total of 599 minutes elapsed between Christian Pulisic’s goal against the Reds for AC Milan on matchday one and Jonathan David’s strike for Lille at Anfield. After Pulisic’s goal in the third minute at San Siro in September, Arne Slot’s team came back to win that game 3-1 and then kept clean sheets in victories against Bologna, RB Leipzig, Bayer Leverkusen, Real Madrid and Girona. It means they have bettered the 572-minute spell without conceding that was achieved by Liverpool under Rafael Benitez in the 2005-06 season. With a win over Lille, confirmed a top-eight finish in the Champions League's league phase and therefore an automatic place in the last 16.