After enjoying a remarkable start to the 2021/22 season, 2022 was supposed to be Mohamed Salah’s year. The Egyptian had scored an incredible 15 goals from his first 12 outings of the campaign, culminating with an historic hat-trick away at Manchester United, and was the early favourite to win the Ballon d’Or.
Naturally the forward couldn’t quite keep up such superhuman scoring returns, finishing 2021 with 22 goals from 25 games, but there was still no reason to believe that 2022 couldn’t be his best year yet. After all, as well as Liverpool ’s domestic and European pursuits, he had an Africa Cup of Nations to look forward to and World Cup qualification to secure.
Alas, by his own high standards that he has continued to set ever since joining the Reds in the summer of 2017, 2022 hasn’t lived up to the forward’s sky-high expectations.
