Mohamed Salah retains CAF African Player of the Year gong

Dakar, January 9: Mohamed Salah has been named African Player of the Year for the second time in succession.

Salah defended his crown after scoring 44 goals for Liverpool and Egypt in 2018. He finished as the 2017-18 Premier League Golden Boot winner with 32 goals.

Liverpool team-mate Sadio Mane and Arsenal's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang also made the three-man shortlist for the award.

The nominees for the main award made up the front three in CAF's Africa Best XI of the year, with Guinea's Naby Keita providing further Liverpool representation in a midfield completed by Atletico Madrid and Ghana's Thomas Partey and Manchester City and Algeria's Riyad Mahrez.

🇪🇬👑 K I N G M O 🇪🇬👑@MoSalah has been named CAF African Player of the Year for the second successive year. 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/ySmqzO4Xbq
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) January 8, 2019

The back-four was split between Serie A and the Premier League, with Juventus and Morocco's Mehdi Benatia alongside Napoli's Kalidou Koulibaly - an international colleague of Mane's.

Ivory Coast duo Serge Aurier and Eric Bailly won approval thanks, in part, to their displays for Tottenham and Manchester United, while Uganda's Denis Onyango of South African club Mamelodi Sundowns was recognised as Africa's best goalkeeper.