Klopp knows what drives Salah's Liverpool journey as Reds change begins

Jurgen Klopp might have indicated that it was "the story of his life" to often come agonisingly close to big victories, but when his players receive individual accolades he must know that he has also been an important part of their tales.

After a season which brought two trophies, and a separation from two more by just a single Premier League point and an inspired Belgian goalkeeper, the temptation would be to navel gaze, and wonder if all of this effort is really worth it if Liverpool's sustained excellence isn't going to bear fruit in the form of the big prizes.

But where does that get you?

Klopp has long subscribed to the idea that his players and their fans prioritise 'journey hunting' over whatever the eventual outcomes to those journeys are. He was determined for them to hold a parade after defeat in Paris because why not? What else were they going to do?

Coming up short is just what happens occasionally when you engage in battles against outfits the quality of Manchester City and Real Madrid, and key to the shift in psychological mindset that the club have undergone in Klopp's time is the ability to absorb disappointment and move on.

Granted, that ability will have been tested this summer, but you get the feeling the mood has already shifted.

Missing out on the Premier League and the defeat to Real Madrid will have allowed those from the outside to have their fun as a red bus snaked through Merseyside with 'just' the FA and League Cups on it, but it was clear to see that Klopp saw it as important to mark the end of one journey and the beginning of the next.

Preparations for next season would already have been in motion before that bus set off of course, both on a team and individual basis. Including for the individual.

And as he plots what will become of his best player Mohamed Salah in 2022-23 - still the final year that he is contracted to be at Liverpool - Klopp has been reflecting on what has brought him here.

"He's full of desire, he never stops developing and he's a workhorse," said Klopp when heaping praise on the Egyptian as he picked up his second PFA Player of the Year award.

"I know we say it a lot but he's really the first in [training] - maybe Millie [James Milner] beats him from time to time - and he's the last out.

"So treatment, gym work, all these kinds of things. On the pitch, if you tell Mo because of the intensity of the games 'Mo, you go in now. Thank you very much'. [He says] 'I'm good, I'm good'.

"So he deserves it absolutely, and that's why he's the second time winner of this wonderful trophy."

Indeed, much of Klopp's confidence about the coming challenges and the knowledge that his team can fight for honours again will come from the presence of Salah. The pair's relationship has been a special one ever since they joined forces in 2017, and the Egyptian's elevation to near the summit of the world game has to be partly put down to his manager.

Klopp has routinely taken decisions throughout Salah's time at Liverpool that have helped with his development.

Right from the start he switched Sadio Mane from the right to the left flank to immediately get Salah into the team in his best position. It seems ridiculous to reflect upon now, but he was initially viewed as backup to his Senegalese teammate who had been at the club one year longer.

Logistical issues around returning to Africa were handled too, and with Salah also often indulged and played in matches you wouldn't quite expect him to be involved in. For all the chat about sports science and Klopp's concerns about fixture congestion if he can get Salah on the pitch then he will, because Salah will just see that pitch as the latest stage for him to strut his stuff upon.

Maybe all of this is what got to Mane in the end, with the forward opting to not ask for a new contract and instead seek a new challenge away from Anfield and from a player many like to portray as his rival, largely in his home continent.

It was quite rare, but Mane would sometimes be left out of the starting lineup for matches you didn't quite expect - with both of Liverpool's last two visits to Old Trafford coming to mind.

Salah scored four goals across those two games, with his will to win and his determination to be the best marrying so well with Klopp's outlook, so much so as to bring him to a point when individual awards are expected even if all the team prizes are slightly tougher to capture.

Would they be easier to win almost anywhere else? Probably. Mane will certainly hope so as he eyes a move to Bayern Munich.

But Salah won't find the type of union he has with Klopp elsewhere, with his insistence that he will still be a Liverpool player in the new season drawing nothing but knowing nods from those who know that any ongoing contract discussions won't prove a distraction to his form.

With Mane gone, Darwin Nunez seemingly arriving and Roberto Firmino's influence fading as he too enters his final year, everything is changing around Salah at Anfield. The structures he had in place to take his game to these remarkable heights are fading away.

Well, almost all of them are.

Klopp is still there, still relying on Salah to be his team's talisman and no doubt still willing to tweak his team in order to get the best out of him.

As he weighs up where his long-term future will lie, the Egyptian must be reflecting on what, and who, has brought him here.