He's not bad, that Mohamed Salah. Be it running down the wing, as the song goes, or running laps around Asmir Begovic for the hat-trick, he really is half decent at this lark.
That it was ever in doubt feels a little silly now. Most folk thought it, and there's no great shame in that – his standard at the start of the campaign was just not quite what it was last time round.
And yet here we are in December and he is very much the star on the tree, shining ever brighter the colder it gets.