Mohamed Salah comments from Liverpool team-mate speak volumes amid contract issue

Andy Robertson is hoping Mo Salah’s latest flying start to a season is a sign of things to come.

Salah got the second as Liverpool saw off Ipswich. That was his ninth goal on an opening weekend which is a new Premier League record. The Egyptian ace may be 32 but his clubmate believes he is fired up and ready for another superb season.

“Only time will tell but I think everyone knows Mo looks after his body exceptionally well and does everything right,” said Robertson. “He’s a model professional and someone everyone looks up to. He leaves no stone unturned and that’s why he’s still in incredible shape at the age he’s at.

“Long may that continue. Hopefully he keeps playing the way he did against Ipswich. He’s started the season really well. If our main man is playing like that then it’s obviously going to help the team. Hopefully it’s the first of many for this season.”

Meanwhile, Ipswich defender Axel Tuanzebe insists the Tractor Boys learned a valuable lesson on their return to the Premier League – don’t panic after conceding. Tuanzebe admitted Kieran McKenna’s side reacted too much when they went behind to Diogo Jota’s 60th-minute strike at Portman Road.

Ipswich were back in the top tier for the first time in 22 years on an emotional afternoon. But they went all out to try to equalise and Liverpool punished them with a second from Mo Salah five minutes later.

McKenna’s message to the Premier League new boys was to instead try to stay in the game. He said: “There’s certain ways we can manage the game [better], in-game, and he [McKenna] mentioned that today.

“So for example, when they scored their first goal, we’re used to last season where we’d go full-out attack to try and get a goal back. But this year we might have to take a different approach, try and keep ourselves in the game for a bit longer.

“If we’d come to the last ten minutes and it was still 1-0, with the home advantage, we’d have that boost of energy with the crowd behind us to maybe claw that goal back. Having that game management during the game is something that will help us massively this season.”

Tuanzebe insists they will learn from their opening defeat and it will help them ahead of next weekend’s trip to champions Manchester City. He added: “We came off the pedal and they punished us. But we’re happy with our performance and we’ll build on that through the week and take the game to City.”