It's bleak that one of the prominent moments of Jurgen Klopp's last lap at Liverpool will be the frustrated, boiled-over confrontation with talisman Mohamed Salah as the struggling Reds ceded further ground in the Premier League title race away against West Ham United.
Having fallen to defeat against Everton at Goodison Park only days before, looking to build on last weekend's away win over Fulham after losing at home to Crystal Palace, Liverpool are surely resigned to the fact that they will not hand their imminently-departing the perfect, fairytale ending to a magnificent tenure.
That's life. That's football. Salah is one of the Premier League and Liverpool's greatest forwards, and Klopp is a manager of superlative degree, taking an outfit fallen by the wayside and lifting it to unimaginable heights in the days, weeks, and months preceding his appointment in 2015.
It's a narrative, yes, but the volatile nature of Liverpool's two greatest figures locking horns must not define a journey that has been something to behold, something special.
Klopp might be headed for pastures new but 'the Egyptian king' may yet continue his career with Liverpool, though the 31-year-old's contract expires at the end of the 2024/25 campaign and interest in his name will be high (once again) this summer.
Mohamed Salah's season in numbers
Salah's flare-up with his long-time manager has naturally created a sense of malaise to superimpose on the existing struggles that have risen from the slide in form that has yanked away multiple pathways toward silverware.
But with the suggestion from The Athletic's ever-reliable David Ornstein that Salah is expected to stay at the club, it's clear that he remains the linchpin of Liverpool's prospective success, having scored 24 goals and added 13 assists in all competitions this season.
As per FBref, Salah ranks among the top 5% of attacking midfielders and wingers across Europe's top five leagues over the past year for goals and the top 1% for touches in the attacking penalty area and assists per 90.
Returning to the Champions League next season, the £350k-per-week phenomenon will be crucial in ensuring Arne Slot's impending tenure starts with a bang – he is one of Liverpool's greatest and most influential players in Premier League history.
However, he's not the cream of the crop, believe it or not. That crown rests on Luis Suarez's head.
The fee Liverpool paid for Luis Suarez
Back in 2011, Liverpool completed the dual acquisitions of strikers Andy Carroll and Suarez, who completed a £23m transfer from Ajax aged 24.
It was a hefty sum for a player who had yet to dip his toes into a top-five European league but the Uruguayan had an inborn predatory sense that had seen him plunder 111 goals and 68 assists from just 159 matches in the Netherlands, underscoring his prowess as one of the game's most exciting rising goalscorers.
The fact that Liverpool forked out a staggering club-record £35m figure to secure Carroll's services that same window took the pressure off Suarez somewhat, with these respective deals remarkable to look back at with hindsight.
While nostalgia can often bloat and inflate in sporting spheres, there is no distorted prism from this vantage point – Suarez was one of the very best to do it in the Premier League, probably trumping Salah.
Luis Suarez's stats for Liverpool
Suarez, in total, scored 82 goals and supplied 41 assists across 132 appearances for Liverpool before heading to Spain, where he enjoyed the most illustrious days of his career.
Still, that's not to say that his time on Merseyside wasn't without its prosperity, producing one of the most breathtaking, single-handedly stupefying campaigns in the division's history, clinching 31 goals and 13 assists from just 33 matches – impetuously storming to the Golden Boot – as Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool narrowly missed out on a maiden Premier League title.
It wasn't just his extraordinary numbers, but it was the way he did it. Suarez made goalscoring a craft, made wreaking destruction in the final third an art form. As he swirled and savaged his way into the danger area – which, by the way, was wherever he declared it to be – Suarez truly proved to be a vortex of prolific brilliance unlike anything the Premier League had seen, performing with the hunger and the certainty of a lion closing down prey.
He's been described as a "legend" by talent scout Jacek Kulig and rightly so; while Liverpool came up short in their bid for gold during those pre-Klopp days, it was generally accepted that the Reds had overachieved to soar into contention. Suarez was the key cog – there bloomed a phenomenon's ascendancy.
Why Liverpool sold Luis Suarez
Liverpool, having failed to win the title, were resigned to selling their most valuable asset, who had been enticed by the allure of Barcelona and departed for a £75m fee – making him the third-most valuable player in the world at the time and handing Liverpool an incredible 226% profit on that one-time sizeable outlay to bring him in from Ajax.
For such a staggering sum of money, it's hardly surprising that Liverpool decided to accept, especially after he exhausted all of his effort in seeking success in the 2013/14 campaign.
1.
Philippe Coutinho
£142m
2.
Luis Suarez
£75m
3.
Fernando Torres
£50m
4.
Raheem Sterling
£49m
5.
Fabinho
£40m
While Salah is the standout of the Klopp era, one of the most effective strikers in Premier League history, he's not quite on the level of Suarez, who has even been described as "unplayable" by former Reds star Jose Enrique when earning his stripes at Liverpool.
Suarez's record of 103 goal contributions from 110 Premier League fixtures for Liverpool (0.94 per game) will take some beating, with Salah scoring a still extraordinary 226 direct contributions from 260 games in the English top-flight (a rate of 0.86 per game).
Ultimately, both stars will be looked back on with the greatest respect for years to come, having blessed Liverpool with two of the Premier League's all-time attacking sensations.
Market Movers
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