Mo Salah left out of Egypt squad for friendly tournament

Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah has been left out of the Egypt squad for a forthcoming international friendly tournament.

The 31-year-old left the Africa Cup of Nations early when he picked up a hamstring injury on 18 January against Ghana and suffered a re-injury during a second-half substitute appearance against Brentford on his return.

Salah has been out of action since but returned to training this week and came off the bench in the 74th minute of their 5-1 thrashing of Sparta Prague on Thursday in the Europa League.

The Liverpool top scorer has 19 goals this campaign and his return to fitness sparked a club-versus-country row as Egypt previously rejected Liverpool's request to exempt their captain from the tournament in Abu Dhabi where they will face New Zealand and either Tunisia or Croatia in the final.

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp previously admitted: "Two games with Egypt is really not up to me.

"We want to be careful, we have to be careful but we're in the middle of a super-intense period of the season and we need everyone."

But, the Egypt FA have reportedly agreed to reluctantly leave their star man out of the international break and Salah will remain with Liverpool to work on fitness for their title run-in.