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Mo Salah admits he was "shocked" to have finished seventh in the Ballon d'Or rankings having been touted as a possible winner.

The Golden Ball was handed out in November and, once again, was claimed by Lionel Messi, who now has seven.

Robert Lewandowski proved to be his closest competition with many feeling as if the Pole deserved the individual gong.

However, such was his sensational form for Liverpool, Salah was seen as something of an outside bet.

Salah was scoring more than a goal per game, with some of his sensational strikes underlining his quality.

Despite that the Egyptian never threatened and ended up finishing below the likes of Jorginho, N'Golo Kante and Karim Benzema.

Liverpool's No.11 has confessed there is nothing he can do about the result despite evidently taking issue with it.

"It shocked me [not doing better in Ballon d'Or voting], but there's nothing I can say. No one in the world expected that I would be seventh, but that's what happened," Salah said on Egyptian TV and the DMC channel.

Salah's efforts were also not good enough to see him named in the latest edition of FIFA's World XI.

The 29-year-old didn't even make the original 23-man shortlist with Cristiano Ronaldo, Erling Haaland, Lewandowski and Messi the forward players eventually picked in