“The most devastating player around": Rio Ferdinand says £11.7m-a-year Liverpool star punishes teams

Rio Ferdinand says Mohamed Salah is the best player in the world right now, labelling the Egyptian winger "as “the most devastating player around at the moment”.

23 goals and 9 assists at this stage in the season just highlights how ridiculously efficient Salah is and while rival fans and detractors will say he's not aesthetically pleasing, I do not care one bit what they think.

I find it quite pleasing to watch him outscore every Premier League attacker as well as get more assists than every other so-called creator.

In fact, the only player in England's top flight with as many assists as him this season is Trent Alexander-Arnold which is also just absurd. This includes players like Kevin De Bruyne and Bruno Fernandes.

Salah's sumptuous goal against former club Chelsea on Sunday was his 16th goal of the season and the next highest scorer is, oh, you guessed it, a Liverpool player.

Diogo Jota has done wonderfully this season and has 10 goals while Jamie Vardy has 9 and is third for goals scored in the Premier League. Salah is, quite simply, in a league of his own.

By the time he returns from AFCON at the end of January, he should still be at the top of the goalscoring charts as he has given himself such a lead.

“He’s in my Fantasy team so I was buzzing when he scored that, to be honest with you,” he said.

“The way he stood Alonso up shimmied a bit moved him up, pressed pause for a minute and slapped it in the goal

“He’s the most devastating player around at the moment. He’s so decisive, getting two or three chances a game

“He’s too hot to handle now.”

Salah makes £11.7m per year but is looking for a major increase on that but is locked in talks with FSG with no indication on when an update may be issued.