Salah's revenge mission: Darwin Nunez OUT, Ballon d'Or IN for Liverpool stay

Robin Bairner

Updated: 12 Mar 2025 05:59 CDT
4 min read

Mohamed Salah was having a Ballon d’Or season right until the moment he ran into PSG and Achraf Hakimi.

The Liverpool star has been the poster boy of the Premier League this season, leading the Reds to a 20th top-flight title thanks to his contribution of 27 goals and 17 assists.

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STATS

Mohamed Salah

F (CR), M (R)

Liverpool

Mohamed Salah

F (CR), M (R)

Liverpool

29

Games
27

Goals
17

Assists

When it came to the crunch in the knockout stages of the Champions League, though, he didn’t turn up.

“Over the two games, he wasn’t even at the level of Ligue 1,” FootMercato journalist Seb Nonda said.

“I’m disgusted because he’s a player I really like, but he didn’t have the level of the Champions League. He was ghostly in both matches with his choices, his positions, his crosses, his lack of defensive work. He definitely said goodbye to the Ballon d’Or.”

PSG’s emerging candidate for that particular prize, Ousmane Dembele, might not have had his most sparkling evening either, but he ultimately got the goal that breached Liverpool’s mighty keeper Alisson and was the catalyst for Luis Enrique’s side coming back from a first-leg deficit to win at Anfield.

This was the impact – even on a bad night – that Salah was supposed to have.

No doubt he is as disappointed as anyone with Liverpool’s unforeseen early exit, which almost draws a close to their competitive campaign. With a 15-point lead over an ailing Arsenal side, Arne Slot’s side are cruising to the Premier League crown, with Sunday's Carabao Cup final against Newcastle the last hurrah.

Attention now turns towards the summer and the future of Liverpool’s three out-of-contract stars: Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk and Salah.

With Trent veering towards a move to Real Madrid, the future of the latter pair is less certain.

Salah to come back for more?

The manner of Liverpool’s exit and his own performance, though, may just fuel the desire of Salah to come back for more.

The world’s best player does not deserve to bow out of the European area amid a muddle of poor individual choices and mix-ups with the erratic Darwin Nunez, who came off the bench to provide the element of chaos Liverpool craved but none of the quality that Salah would have appreciated.

After a campaign in which he has scored just seven goals, it’s surely time for Liverpool to move on from the grotesque Nunez experiment, which made the hapless hitman the club’s most expensive player of all time.

Get a real striker up front beside Salah, one whose attributes account to more than just running wildly out of possession and some surprisingly intelligent movement off the ball, and he could flourish again.

Promise the Egypt international that type of world-class partner to work with and another crack at the Champions League is surely an enticing prospect given how strong Liverpool otherwise look.

It would be a sad way for Salah to end his Anfield era with two very average displays. Liverpool can play on that to make sure he stays put.