Mo Salah remains remarkable but Liverpool’s strength is in the collective | Barney Ronay


Salah could not have a better moment to rediscover his best form but the title will be decided by togetherness not star power

There was an interesting story last year on the Al-Monitor website about Mo Salah’s home town of Nagrig. An Al-Monitor journalist had travelled the dust roads from Cairo to discover exactly how Salah’s rise had inspired hope, laughter and joy. And found … no joy, very little laughter and only a grudging amount of hope.

Instead the people of Nagrig wanted to talk about how nothing works, how they have no jobs and how all the people suddenly turning up looking for a kind of Scouse Bethlehem were quite annoying. As were the newspaper stories about beaming, Salah-crazed Egyptians capering in the streets like ham actors in a generic Indiana Jones bazaar scene.

Related: Klopp and Pochettino have reminded English football what it does best | Jonathan Wilson

Twitter: follow us at @guardian_sport

Continue reading...