When things aren’t right for a man at work, it’s a weight on him. Often it affects other parts of his life. For Mo, he hasn’t hit the heights of last season and it hasn’t been falling for him, relatively speaking, for much of this season so far. So I view not smiling as much in that sort of way. He doesn’t want to be a grinning fool, acting as though everything is great, when he hasn’t been at his best yet. He is a nice guy and a humble family man, but again, when things aren’t quite right at work, and I see it especially with men (maybe women can ‘compartmentalise’ better?) it often affects their wider sense of well being.
That’s just what we see on the pitch in terms of Mo’s form. Then factor into the equation the Egyptian situation with the sponsorship. I’m not fully aware of all the details there, but it sounds like he has his own sponsors, and he should given his status, but the Egyptian national team are overriding some of that and profiting from Mo’s superstar status to their own financial gain. Mo loves his country and he is a humble man, but who wants to get ripped off? So there has been a bit of a tussle going on with that, and I’m certain it weighs heavily on him as he likely just wants to be a footballer, and feed on the affections of his fans, and play, and score goals, and enjoy the relationship of doing what he does and giving the fans what they want. But it all gets complicated by greed around him...
Going a bit further than that, he’s probably still annoyed about the CL final, the way he got injured, the fact that Ramos appeared to get away with it - plausible deniability, and Real Madrid won the trophy. Then he was whisked off to the World Cup while still injured, played too soon, but understandably because the hopes of a nation were on his shoulders, but they had a poor World Cup.
After that it was a short break and back to work at Liverpool, and while stories of Mo’s poor form are way overblown, it’s still true that he hasn’t quite hit the heights of last season, and there have been plenty of signs that none of the front three have. Yet. Last night with four goals from the front three was ace, and there’s plenty more to come where that came from!
I don’t think there’s any problem with LFC. Mo is loved here, he loves the manager, the fans, the platform he has, and I’m sure we pay him very well too. Nights like last night will do him the world of good. A couple of goals, team playing well, Mo feeling the love of the fans... it’s all going to come together.