Mohamed Salah returns from the bench as Hugo Ekitike scores twice for Liverpool

Hugo Ekitike scored both goals – including the fastest of the Premier League season – as Mohamed Salah made an earlier-than-expected return in Liverpool’s 2-0 victory over Brighton at Anfield.

The cameramen barely had time to shift their focus off Salah, back in the squad after being dropped for his explosive comments about being “thrown under the bus” by the club, when Ekitike struck after just 46 seconds.

Salah held talks with Arne Slot on Friday after his midweek Champions League omission and would have expected to wait until the second half for a chance to redeem himself – at least in most observers’ eyes.

But Joe Gomez’s injury released him from the bench, where he was for his fourth successive match sharing the occasional joke with Andy Robertson, midway through the first half.

It was not the change Slot wanted to make with the game still evenly poised, but one he could not avoid without creating more headlines.

However, set-piece coach Aaron Briggs gave the instructions as Slot was in conversation with Dominik Szoboszlai, his new right-back.

Salah’s immediately combined with Alexis Mac Allister to almost set up Ekitik,e and the Kop broke into Salah’s song before he was involved again as Ekitike volleyed wide.

Liverpool’s 4-2-3-1 formation, with Florian Wirtz playing off the left, does not suit Salah due to the additional work-rate required but when from a Brighton counter-attack, Szoboszlai made the lung-busting run to snuff out the danger Salah was not far behind in the tracking-back stakes.

And after the Egypt international forced Bart Verbruggen into his first save of the second half at the expense of a corner and the unmarked Ekitike headed home the chant for the Frenchman was quickly replaced with a louder