Mohamed Salah has gently hinted at what Liverpool may face next season.

If there were any doubts about Mohmed Salah’s dedication to Liverpool after signing the most lucrative contract in the club’s history last summer, they were answered decisively throughout the 2022/23 season.

In his sixth season at Anfield, the Egyptian, like he has done since joining from like Roma in 2017, was a rare source of hope for Kopites in a season that finished with Liverpool finishing last in the Premier League for the first time since 2016.

Salah is still recovering from his long-running contract dispute, which has become a subplot in the Reds’ pursuit of Premier League and Champions League triumph in 2022.

Any lingering effects of the Champions League defeat in Paris appeared to be forgotten as Salah provided an early statement of intent against Manchester City in late July, scoring and assisting to help Liverpool end their 16-year wait for a Community Shield victory at the King Power Stadium.

However, when events in L4 unfolded over the next few months, it became evident that the attacker and his teammates had in fact delivered the first of many false dawns, as their Premier League campaign began with only four wins from their first ten games. While it quickly became clear that Jurgen Klopp had a slew of underlying issues to fix, particularly in midfield, the departure of Sadio Mane to Bayern Munich saw the club enter a period of transition as Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez began their first full seasons on Merseyside.

Salah’s measly return of six goals in 17 league games during a worisome first half of the season, as the Reds suffered defeats to Manchester United, Arsenal, Nottingham Forest, and Leeds United, had him and his team-mates looking from the outside in when it came to Arsenal and Man City’s fight for the Premier League title.

But, as with all ebbs and flows, Salah came off the bench to achieve the fastest-ever Champions League hat-trick in a 7-1 thrashing of Rangers only days before executing the ultimate smash-and-grab operation over City. The forward’s two-goal performance against Tottenham Hotspur in November gave Liverpool their first Premier League away victory in six months.

Soon after, he was given the rare opportunity to reset in November and December when he traveled to Dubai with the rest of Liverpool’s non-World Cup contingent. Despite scoring the opening goal in the Reds’ return to Premier League action on Boxing Day, a 3-1 triumph against Aston Villa, both the player’s and team’s fortunes would fall further before showing signs of turnaround.

Losses at Brentford, Brighton (in both the Premier League and the FA Cup), and Wolverhampton Wanderers were the result of that torment. And a stretch of just one goal in 360 minutes of league action during that period constituted the low point of Klopp’s men’s season.

Despite his focus on inscribing his name in the Anfield record books once more, Salah’s 11-goal run in his final 15 Premier League games saw him leapfrog Rob Fowler and Steven Gerrard in the club’s all-time scoring charts, while a brace in Liverpool’s historic 7-0 thrashing of Manchester United confirmed his status as the Premier League’s most prolific scorer of all time.

Despite blazing his penalty off target six days later in the defeat at Bournemouth, the mauling of Erik Ten Hag’s side proved to be a catalyst for Liverpool in the long run, and coincided with Salah becoming the club’s first player to find the back of the net in eight consecutive home games.

And when the Reds miraculously recovered from the brink of relegation to the Champions League with a flawless 11-match unbeaten run in the final weeks of the season, Salah, after his most trying of seasons at Anfield, returned to a position of royalty as part of a slick, new-look front three alongside Cody Gakpo and Luis Diaz.

Of course, the disappointment of a trophyless season will be felt by Egypt’s captain, who has evolved into a serial winner during his time on Merseyside, but after his fourth 30-goal season with the club, Salah will be as prepared as they come when Liverpool plans a return to the Champions League the following season.