Arne Slot hailed the “unbelievable” Mohamed Salah after the Liverpool striker registered his 250th goal for the club as the Premier League champions eased the pressure on their head coach with victory against Aston Villa.

Salah opened the scoring in a deserved defeat of Unai Emery’s in-form team following a calamitous error by World Cup-winning goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez. Ryan Gravenberch added a second to end a run of four successive league defeats for Liverpool and lift Slot’s side to third in the table. Salah’s strike capped a vastly improved performance from the Egypt international.

“It’s huge,” Slot said of Salah’s latest Liverpool milestone. “It is almost unbelievable if you score 250 goals, let alone 250 goals for one club. You don’t see that much in football any more. Apart from the goal he had a very good performance. When we had to play long, we mainly played to him and he held the ball and the team could come to him. What I liked was that he also helped the team defensively as well. After the first goal he was helping Virgil [van Dijk] around the halfway line. I liked his performance tonight. For him to score is not...