Mohamed Salah scored seven goals and registered seven assists in just six Premier League appearances for Liverpool in December, yet that was somehow not enough for the Egyptian to end up with the Player of the Month award.

Salah has claimed the award six times since moving to Liverpool in 2017, most recently in November last year, and most neutrals will agree that he should've made it back-to-back gongs for his showings in December.

The 32-year-old began the month with a goal and an assist in the 2-0 victory over Manchester City, before then scoring twice and registering another assist in the dramatic 3-3 draw with Newcastle.

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The postponement of the Merseyside derby on December 7 robbed Salah of the chance to enhance his figures for the month, and a week later he assisted Cody Gakpo in a 2-2 draw with Fulham.

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Two goals and two assists then followed in the 6-3 destruction of Tottenham just before Christmas, before another goal versus Leicester, and a goal and two assists against West Ham. Liverpool collected 14 points in December and Salah's goal contributions alone during the month were responsible for seven of them.

The winner of the award, Alexander Isak, had a brilliant December of his own, actually scoring more goals than Liverpool's star man.

The Swede netted eight times and recorded two assists, and against normal competition he would have been a worthy winner of the award, but Salah is not normal competition, and the gong has ended up in the wrong hands on this occasion.

Isak scored in all of Newcastle's matches in December, which is a feat that is not be sniffed at in any circumstances. However, were his 10 goal contributions to be taken away from his team's matches, the Magpies would have only ended up collecting one fewer point than they ended up with.

Isak scored and assisted against Liverpool to help earn his team a point, but his goal in a 4-2 loss to Brentford was effectively worthless. The 26-year-old then scored and assisted versus Leicester in a game Newcastle won 4-0, before a hat-trick in another 4-0 win at Ipswich, and a goal against each of Aston Villa and Manchester United in respective 3-0 and 2-0 wins.

That is not to slate Isak — he had an excellent month — but Salah posted better numbers and had a far bigger influence on the outcome of his team's matches.

The winner of each Player of the Month award is chosen by a combination of: an online public vote, which is worth 10 per cent of the final tally; a panel of experts; and the captain of each Premier League club.

As for the manager of the month award, that fairly went to the only manager who picked up more points than Arne Slot in December: Nuno Espirito Santo. Nuno's Nottingham Forest collected 15 points from a possible 18 games, with the team's only loss during the month coming away to Manchester City.