Mohamed Salah says his current record-breaking season is his favourite as the Liverpool forward continues to set new landmarks almost every week.
A man-of-the-match performance in the 2-0 win at Manchester City, which extended the club's lead at the top of the table to 11 points, saw him become the first player in Premier League history to score and assist in both games against the reigning champions in the same season.
He has now scored and assisted in 11 Premier League matches this season, the most by a player in a single season in one of Europe’s big five leagues since Lionel Messi for Barcelona in 2014-15 (11).
In scoring the opener he took his tally to 30 for the campaign, 25 of which have been in the league, and moved level with Gordon Hodgson in joint-third in the club’s all-time goalscorers list with 241.
Asked if he was playing better than ever, Salah told Sky Sports: "I don’t know. It is opinion.
"Maybe people prefer my first seasons or now but I prefer now because winning the league, helping the young players, it is special."
The Egypt international is entering the final four months of his contract with no sign yet that an extension will be agreed.
But that has not impinged on the 32-year-old’s form as the quest for a second Premier League title, plus having a Carabao Cup final to contest and a last-16 tie against Paris St-Germain next month, is driving him on to greater heights.
"We need another title. Me and the big guys in the team, we need another title," he added of the desire of the likes of him and fellow senior players Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Andy Robertson and Alisson Becker to double their tally of Premier League winners’ medals.
Salah has become the first player in Premier League history to register 40-plus goal involvements in two different seasons and the first in Europe’s top five leagues to be directly involved in 50 goals across all competitions this season.
Head coach Arne Slot admits he struggles to describe Salah’s achievements, although he prefers to take an all-round view of the player’s contribution.
"The numbers speak for themselves," he said.
"What pleased me most is that mostly, apart from this game and maybe the home game against City or Chelsea, we have more ball possession. That means we bring him many, many, many times into promising positions.
"Today there weren’t that many moments we could bring him into promising positions but the seven, eight, nine, 10 moments that we gave him the ball in those positions he was every time a threat and that probably tells you even more the quality player he is.
"It’s not so easy for an attacker if he has to defend, defend, defend and then gets the ball and has to do something special.
"That’s sometimes difficult but at the moment not many things seem difficult for Mo."
Slot also refused to consider the prospect the Premier League title was Liverpool's after their win at the Etihad and is simply focused on Wednesday's visit of Newcastle United.
"The fans can sing whatever they want, but we know as a team how hard we have to work for every single win," he said.
"It is only three days ago someone asked me if we had a dip on Wednesday (in a 2-2 draw with Aston Villa). I don't believe that as well as I'm calm now about this win.
"You can ask every single question you want, but it is so hard to judge the league table before every single game is played.
"In my opinion, Villa and City away (Liverpool's last two matches) are two very difficult games so you can drop points there.
"In every other league having a lead like this would be very comfortable - except for this one because this league every single game gives you a lot of challenges."
The Dutchman did admit, however, the long-awaited league win at City - something predecessor Jurgen Klopp never managed against Pep Guardiola - felt important.
"If you play away at the Etihad and win it is always a big win, no matter what the league table looks like because if you play away against a Pep team it is almost impossible to have more ball possession than his team has," he added.
"We knew we had to defend a lot and that is what we did really well and there were some good moments in the counter-attack that went for us in the game."
