Mohamed Salah has fired his way to more Liverpool history after breaking Fernando Torres' record of 33 competitive goals for a player in his debut season at Anfield, and now has club legend Ian Rush in his sights.
The prolific Egypt international opened the scoring in the fourth minute against Watford to move level with Spain striker Torres, who enjoyed a prolific first campaign in 2007-08.
The well-taken strike was Salah's 25th in England's top flight this term, to go with seven in the Champions League and one in the FA Cup.
And, before half-time, Salah scored his 34th goal of the season to take him ahead of Torres and etch his name into the Liverpool history books.
34 - Salah has now scored more goals than any other Liverpool player in their debut season at the club. Historic. twitter.com/OptaJoe/status…
There was no stopping Salah in the second half, either, as he completed his hat-trick to take his tally to 35 for the season, before weighing in with his fourth of the game to make it 5-0.
The most any Liverpool player has netted in a single season is the 47 managed by Rush in 1983-84.
The Reds have seven Premier League matches left, plus at least two Champions League games which could potentially turn into five should Liverpool reach the final.
Therefore, Salah - who has averaged 0.88 goals per game in his 41 appearances - could have as many as 12 matches to better Rush, who needed 65 outings to reach 47.
His contribution against Watford was also notable for a couple of other reasons as he became the first Egyptian player to score a hat-trick in the Premier League, while he was the first Liverpool player to score four goals in a league game since Luis Suarez in December 2013. He also became the first Liverpool player to score a hat-trick at Anfield since Suarez in October 2013.
Salah's haul against Watford also moved him four clear of Harry Kane in the race for the Premier League Golden Boot.
In the build-up to Saturday's visit of Watford,Salah had reiterated his happiness and ambition at Liverpool to further quash talk of a possible move to Real Madrid.
Salah told ESPN Brasil : "In Chelsea I didn't play, so I didn't have my chances. I said to all my friends, I think I said it on many interviews as well, that I wanted to come back.
"I like the Premier League I lot. I feel it has my style of football. I like to play [in] the Premier League.
"I said since day one here that I'm happy here at Liverpool and I want to show my football here.
"If you look at me now and five years ago, everything has changed - mentally, physically, everything."
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