Crucial Mohamed Salah Fitness Update: The Beard Is Gone (Again)

Statisticians and analysts throughout world football who were compiling data on the efficacy of bearded players have been stymied - at least for now - in their efforts. Liverpool star Mohamed Salah revealed a new clean shaven look on his Instagram account following the Reds’ 3-0 victory over Bournemouth, and needless to say, the fanbase is in panic. To be fair, as Liverpool supporters, we are rarely not in full blown panic.

Salah has sported this more aerodynamic look before, but his greatest exploits as a Red have generally occurred while the player has been fully em-bearded. It’s also not helping matters that Salah’s clean-shaven phase coincided in part with his lackluster spell toiling for José Mourinho at Chelsea.

In the interest of protecting some of our more sensitive readers, we have made the editorial decision not to directly show clean-shaven Mo Salah on this page.

If you insist, you may follow this link to the Instagram post in question, but we warn you: these images may be disturbing to some viewers.

Needless to say, resident amateur comic Dejan Lovren has already chimed in on his friend’s new look, stating that “now I believe you that u [sic] are 26.” Liverpool’s next match is a rather uninteresting tie against a minor German side from Bavaria, so hopefully Salah’s teammates will have some time to acclimatize themselves to his drastic decision.