After a performance which Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo would have been proud to look back upon the question can be asked: is Mohamed Salah moving into a sphere in which he can be discussed as their possible successor? Is the Liverpool forward already a genuine Ballon d’Or contender?

Ronaldo is 33; Messi is 30. Salah is, at 25, coming into his prime years. It had long been assumed that Neymar, at 26, would eventually be taking the mantle as the world’s best player and part of the Brazilian’s motivation for his world-record move to Paris St-Germain was to step away from Messi; to be number one in his own right. He still has a lot of work to do.

Salah’s season has changed the debate. It has been Messi or Ronaldo since Kaka won the Ballon d’Or in 2007. Ronaldo was second that year, Messi third. Since then the pair have been either first or second – apart from 2010 when Andrés Iniesta was runner-up to Messi – winning it 10 times between them (five times each).

No player from an English club has even made the final three since Ronaldo won it in 2008 while still at Manchester United. Before that Thierry Henry was runner-up with Arsenal in 2006 and Frank Lampard finished second in 2005 and Steven Gerrard third in the same year.