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Jonathan WIlson on Mo Salah

There is perhaps nothing in a career as hard as the leaving of it. Unless something utterly remarkable happens, Mohamed Salah has played his last game for Liverpool. Left out of the starting lineup for each of the last three matches, he trained on Monday after his extraordinary post-match tirade following the 3-3 draw with Leeds but he has not been selected for the Champions League against Inter on Tuesday. He may or may not be with the team for Saturday’s game at Anfield against Brighton (“I don’t know if I am going to play or not but I am going to enjoy it,” he said). After that, he will be in Morocco for the Africa Cup of Nations with the Egypt national team and the transfer window will have opened by the time the tournament is over.

How has it come to this? Salah is one of Liverpool’s all-time greats. He lies behind only Ian Rush and Roger Hunt in their all-time goalscoring charts. Across all clubs, only Alan Shearer, Harry Kane and Wayne Rooney have scored more Premier League goals. He played a key role in two Premier League titles and a Champions League. He’s won the Premier League Golden Boot four times and been named player of the year three times by both his fellow players and soccer writers – including last year. He’s only 33 and there has been no obvious sign yet of him fading with age. This is not the end anybody would have wanted.

There’s plenty of hot, sweaty Champions League action tonight, including Spurs v Slavia Prague and Atalanta v Chelsea. You can follow those games with Niall McVeigh.

‘A meltdown worthy of Saturday Kitchen’

Preamble

We interrupt the news cycle to bring you news of an actual football match: Internazionale v Liverpool in the Champions League. Liverpool’s miserable season took another twist when Mo Salah torched a load of metaphorical bridges at Elland Road on Saturday night. He isn’t in the squad for tonight’s game and may have played his last game for the club. At this rate, given the difficulties their new players have had settling in, Liverpool’s end-of-season DVD will be called Mo Money Mo Problems.

Or maybe it’ll be The Magnificent Seven. Liverpool know as well as any club that a disappointing first half of the season doesn’t preclude you winning trophies in the second: 1980-81, 1981-82 and 2004-05 spring to mind. Right now, despite everything, they are still in the hunt for a seventh European Cup.

They started the day in 13th place in the Champions League table, but only two points behind PSG in second. Inter, who were humiliated by PSG in last year’s final, have put that behind him to take 12 points from their first five games. In the end, the actual football is what matters – even if, on nights like tonight, you wouldn’t necessarily know it.

**Kick off **8pm GMT.