Egyptian star Mohamed Salah responded to critics of his performance in the current season by leading his team Liverpool to a 2-0 victory over Aston Villa in the English Premier League, becoming the third player in 'The Reds' history to score 250 goals. Under coach Arne Slot, Liverpool entered the match against Aston Villa under increasing pressure after four consecutive league defeats, part of six losses in their last seven matches across all competitions. Salah, who had faced criticism for a slow start to the season, opened the scoring in first-half stoppage time due to a glaring error from Aston Villa's goalkeeper Emi MartÃnez, who passed the ball directly to the Liverpool star. Salah joined Roger Hunt and Ian Rush on the list of players who have scored 250 goals for Liverpool. Ryan Gravenberch, who returned after missing three matches with an ankle injury, added the second goal in the 58th minute with a powerful strike that deflected off Pau Torres and into the net. After the match, Salah told TNT: 'The win is very important. We've had some losses in the Premier League and the Champions League... I'm happy to be back on the right track now, this is a big boost before a number of important matches.' The win came before a difficult period, as Liverpool hosts Real Madrid in the Champions League tomorrow, before facing Manchester City in the league on November 9th. Villa started the match strongly, with Morgan Rogers hitting a shot that rebounded off the post after five minutes, and Matty Cash forced goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili into a brilliant save to push a powerful effort over the bar early on. However, Liverpool's performance improved as the match progressed. Newly signed Ovie Ejiakie, who is very popular at Anfield, thought he had scored Liverpool's first goal late in the first half when he headed in a cross from Dominik Szoboszlai, but the goal was ruled out for offside. Liverpool players made 16 shots compared to nine from Aston Villa players. Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk admitted it was not easy to ignore the negative atmosphere during the team's poor run of form. Van Dijk said: 'We don't go onto the pitch to lose matches. We don't play to disappoint ourselves or the fans. We want to give our all and win matches.' He added: 'Nothing is guaranteed, you play in the Premier League, it's the highest level, it's the biggest league in the world, it's difficult to stay calm but you have to do it.' Villa's defeat ended a run of four consecutive wins, and the team dropped to 11th place.
