Jurgen Klopp left the blame for Mo Salah’s Ballon d’Or ranking squarely at the feet of journalists.
The Egyptian international finished in seventh, a place below Cristiano Ronaldo, despite having enjoyed a superb start to the campaign, amassing a remarkable 24 goal contributions in 18 games (across all competitions).
“It’s the Ballon d’Or, journalists vote. You don’t have to ask me, it’s your fault,” the German told reporters at his pre-match presser.
“You’re the journalists; if you think he should be higher up, you have to convince your colleagues.
“I’m really not sure about what is 100%.
“You can always give it to Lionel Messi for the career he had, for the football, all these kinds of things.
“But if you don’t give it to Robert Lewandowski this time then it’s quite tricky to get it at all.
“Yes, Mo almost definitely should have been higher up.”
Though the German was vaguely lighthearted when addressing the matter in question, there’s a sense of general bewilderment with regard to how the former Roma man could have been adjudged to have enjoyed a worse calendar year than some of his domestic rivals.
Whilst the likes of Jorginho and Robert Lewandowski deserve praise for their achievements domestically and, in the case of the former, internationally, it’s difficult to reconcile international trophies with individual performance.
If we were to solely judge a player’s influence on their team, one might argue that Salah’s efforts in near-singlehandedly dragging us back into top four contention was more significant than the Chelsea star’s contributions domestically and abroad.
It all very much depends on whether we genuinely value individual performance over team triumphs – evidently, in this case, the latter seems to have been prioritised.