Mo Salah ‘collapsed to the ground’ after excruciating moment which left Gary Neville shocked

Mo Salah couldn’t hide his disbelief after Hugo Ekitike spurned a gilt-edged chance to put Liverpool in front against Manchester City at Anfield.

The Reds managed to get in at half-time on level terms with the visitors but were by far the stronger team in the opening minutes of the second half, emerging from the dressing room with renewed intent.

Ten minutes after the interval, the Egyptian winger picked up the ball on the edge of the penalty area and curled a beautiful outside-of-the-boot pass into the French forward, who looked prime to continue his fine goalscoring form with only Gianluigi Donnarumma to beat.

Salah collapses in disbelief at shocking Ekitike miss

Shockingly, Ekitike diverted a free header wide of the target, and Gary Neville’s eyes were drawn towards the reaction from Salah to that uncharacteristic miss from the 23-year-old.

Speaking on co-commentary for Sky Sports, the ex-Manchester United defender said: “Salah has collapsed to the ground. He can’t believe [Ekitike] has missed! He has to score!”

A rare howler from Ekitike in front of goal

Normally so composed in front of goal, as we’ve seen to great effect in recent games, it beggars belief how the in-form Frenchman failed to even hit the target with the goal at his mercy.

Even had it been a powerful header to force a stunning save from Donnarumma, we’d still be saying that a striker of Ekitike’s quality should’ve scored, so to divert it wide from such close range has to go down as a terrible miss from him.

Salah’s dramatic reaction summed up the sense of disbelief around Anfield after that shocking moment from Liverpool’s number 22, whose double against Newcastle last weekend took him to 15 goals for the season so far.

The striker may eventually be quite grateful to Dominik Szoboszlai for his outrageous long-distance free kick which put the Reds in front in the 74th minute, a howitzer so good it even outdid his similarly stunning set-piece at home to Arsenal in the early weeks of this campaign.

Ekitike ought to have broken the deadlock much earlier, of course, but thankfully that was a rare lapse from the French centre-forward in what’s been a terrific debut season in the Premier League from the 23-year-old.

You can view Salah’s reaction to Ekitike’s miss below, via @SkySportsPL on X:

Hugo Ekitike steers his header wide after great link-up play with Mohamed Salah pic.twitter.com/iRP6d4WMQ5

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) February 8, 2026

The post Mo Salah ‘collapsed to the ground’ after excruciating moment which left Gary Neville shocked appeared first on The Empire of The Kop.