Exclusive: Ex-Red claims the Ballon d’Or ‘needs looking at’ after admitting his bemusement at results

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Former Liverpool striker Stan Collymore believes the Ballon d’Or ‘really needs looking at’ after Mo Salah was placed seventh and Lionel Messi won the award for the seventh time.

The prestigious award has been heavily criticised recently with many claiming Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski deserved the prize this year.

“It’s absurd,” the 50-year-old told Empire of the Kop.

“I think the Ballon d’Or should be for the best player in the season just gone. There is no measure whatsoever that you could say that was Cristiano Ronaldo, you certainly couldn’t say it was Lionel Messi.

“You look at what Robert Lewandowski has done in the Bundesliga and he continues to set the bar incredibly high in terms of goalscoring.”

The ex-Red believes one of Liverpool’s star-men deserved the trophy this term for his impressive performances.

“Goalscoring, plus entertainment, plus scoring important goals in important games, match-winning goals, it should be Mo Salah clearly.

“You cannot honestly tell me from what Lionel Messi has or hasn’t done so far in Paris, and has or hasn’t done in the latter days of his stay at Barcelona, that it matches up equally to what Mo Salah has done in a Liverpool shirt.

“Because the simple answer is… it has not.”

It’s hard to argue against Collymore’s claim as Mo has netted numerous match-winning goals and has single-handedly won us games in the past.

The Egyptian was asked for his opinion on the matter following Wednesday’s 4-1 defeat of Everton at Goodison Park and laughed as he replied, saying: “I have no comment”.

You can watch Collymore speaking about the Ballon d’Or rankings during the exclusive interview below, courtesy of our Twitter page.

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