As soon as Brentford lost the ball in midfield, manager Thomas Frank knew what was coming. "A signature Liverpool counter-attack", as he put it. And the outcome is nearly always the same. "Into Salah, bang, goal!" And he wasn't wrong.
After taking a pass from Darwin Nunez in his stride, Mohamed Salah calmly passed the ball into the back of the net to put Liverpool 1-0 up six minutes before the break in a game that had been evenly balanced until that point.
Salah scored again as Liverpool eventually ran out easy winners, but Jurgen Klopp paid Frank quite the compliment in his post-match press conference. "More than 20 years ago, when I started my [coaching] career, I wanted to create a team that nobody wanted to play against," the German told reporters at Anfield. "We faced that team today."
However, when it was Frank's turn to speak to the media, he felt the spotlight should shine not on the Bees, but the man who had effectively proved the difference between the two sides. "Mo Salah..." the Dane began, with an unmistakable mix of awe and resignation in his voice. "Klopp is praising me a lot but I don't know if Salah gets enough praise. I think he is potentially the best player in the Premier League.
"In terms of goals and assists, what a level! He must be one of the best offensive players in the world - and not like top 10 - but top three. So, when you have a player of that quality, you just know you are going to have problems. Even on the first goal, it's not every player that scores in that situation, so that just shows his qualities."
Salah's clinical finish was unsurprising, of course. Klopp had pointed out himself that as soon as the ball arrived at Salah's feet inside the Brentford box, "there was no doubt" as to what would happen next. Because there is a sense of inevitability about the Egyptian getting on the scoresheet for Liverpool, so much so, in fact, that his weekly heroics are often taken for granted.
Salah has made the remarkable routine - which is why Frank is 100 percent correct when he says that the forward often doesn't get the credit he deserves.