Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah summed up his extraordinary mentality after winning yet another award in the form of the PFA Men's Players' Player of the Year accolade on Thursday night.
Salah, who turns 30 next week, was voted the best player in England over the 2021/22 season by his peers to win the gong for the second time. The Egyptian forward scored 23 goals and grabbed 13 assists in the Premier League to share the Golden Boot with Son Heung-min and win the Playmaker of the Season award. He also helped the reds win the FA Cup and EFL Cup.
Having already been crowned the FWA Footballer of the Year, Salah has essentially completed a clean sweep of the individual honours available for outfield players in England's top flight - he even won the Goal of the Season award. However, his latest achievement comes at a time of heightened speculation over his future at Anfield.
While Salah has confirmed he will be staying with the Reds for the 2022/23 season, he is out of contract next year and drawn-out talks over an extension have shown little signs of progress. But one thing is for certain: his relentless desire to win more team and individual honours will remain, regardless of where he ends up.
"I have my room, I have a trophy cabinet, and I made sure to have space for one more," Salah responded when asked where he will keep his latest prize. "I always keep space for something. The Golden Boot was the same, I kept two spaces for the Golden Boot. I will keep another space. I'm always keeping space to try and imagine the trophy that's going to come there."
With Salah's mindset, it is hard to envision a future which does not see him collecting plenty more trophie sin the future.
"It's great, always, to win a trophy, individual or collective and this one is big, so [I'm] very happy and very proud of that," Salah added. "This one is a really good one to win, especially because it's voted by players. Of course, I wanted the Premier League first before anything, Champions League as well.
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"But, individually, it shows you that you worked really hard and you get what you work for as an individual. Collectively, for sure, the team comes first but you win the journalists' one, you win the players' one as well, so it shows that this season was really good."
Quizzed on whether his mindset has changed over the years, Salah responded: "Kind of. Just when you're young, sometimes excitement takes you away, makes something different in your game.
"But when you get older you feel more stable and deal better with the pressure. You know exactly what you want from football, so I'm just trying to chill, help the team."
