BREAKING (and I use that word loosely): Arne Slot has looked at a 17-year-old boy who scored one very nice goal against Fulham and decided the most responsible thing to do was compare him to Mohamed Salah, a man who has scored approximately seven thousand goals and is legally classified as a national treasure in two separate countries.

Sources close to sources tell me that somewhere in Liverpool's training ground, a sports psychologist just felt a disturbance in the Force.

Now look. Rio Ngumoha might be absolutely brilliant. He might genuinely be the heir to Salah's throne. He scored a lovely goal, cutting in from the right, curling it into the far corner, doing the whole "left-footed wizard from the right wing" thing that Salah has been doing since before Ngumoha was old enough to tie his own boots. But Arne, ARNE. The lad is seventeen. He has GCSEs to worry about. He probably still has a bedtime. And you've just put "the next Salah" on his shoulders like it's a fun little rucksack and not a 200-kilogram psychological anvil.

This happens every single time, and it never ends well. So naturally, I've ranked the seven escalating levels of danger when a manager compares a teenager to a club legend.

Level 1: "He reminds me of..." — Safe enough. Vague. Plausible deniability. "He reminds me of Salah in the sense that he also plays football and has two legs." Fine. We can work with this.

Level 2: "He has similar qualities to..." — Getting warmer. Now we're talking about specific attributes. Left foot. Pace. Ability to make defenders question their career choices. Still recoverable, but the tabloids are sharpening their pencils.

Level 3: "That goal was very Salah-like" — This is where Slot currently sits, and this is where I start sweating. You've now attached a specific iconic moment to a child. Every goal he scores from now on will be measured against the Salah yardstick. Every goal he doesn't score will be a "failure to live up to the comparison." Arne, what have you done.

Level 4: "He could reach that level" — Now you've set a target. An impossible, ridiculous, "score 40 goals a season for seven consecutive years" target. The kid's Wikipedia page already has a "comparisons" section. It's too late.

Level 5: "He's the long-term replacement for..." — At this point you've basically told Salah himself that his locker is being measured for new nameplates. The dressing room dynamics are now officially a soap opera.

Level 6: "He IS the next Salah" — The definitive statement. The point of no return. See also: every "next Messi" who ended up playing for Getafe.

Level 7: Giving him the actual shirt number — If Rio Ngumoha ever inherits the number 11 shirt, I want someone to check on every Liverpool fan's blood pressure simultaneously. The NHS will need to prepare.

Here's the thing that makes this so perfectly, beautifully football. The comparison might be totally fair! Ngumoha genuinely does play like a young Salah. He's quick, he's direct, he's got that maddening ability to drift past defenders like they're furniture. But the history of "the next [insert legend]" is littered with broken promises and shattered confidence. For every Salah comparison that works out, there are fifteen "next Gerrards" playing in League Two and doing punditry for a regional podcast.

Sources close to sources tell me that Liverpool's media team have already had to delete a premature "passing of the torch" graphic from the club's social channels. I cannot confirm this. I will not try to confirm this. Confirmation is for journalists. I am simply a man with a keyboard and a deeply unreliable network of informants.

Good luck, Rio. Genuinely. But maybe ask Arne to compare you to someone a bit less terrifying next time. James Milner, perhaps. Nobody ever got crushed by being called "the next Milner."

Actually, that's quite a lot of pressure too. Forget I said anything.