Considering his fabulous year, Mohamed Salah probably had to have a game in 2021 that he would rather forget.
Unfortunately for Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool, it arrived just as Manchester City are flexing their muscles at the top of the Premier League.
Had Salah converted an early penalty at the King Power, the eventual outcome would not have been a formality but it would have been a very, very strong probability.
Instead, Ademola Lookman’s brilliant second half strike means Liverpool go into the second half of the season SIX points behind City.
And considering City’s remorseless brilliance, that is already an ominous-looking gap.
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It would surely have been different had Salah not produced the unfamiliar alongside the familiar.
The familiar was to find a rogue limb in the penalty areas - this one belonging to makeshift centre-half Wilfred Ndidi - while the unfamiliar was to strike a penalty so poorly, it simply hit a falling Kasper Schmeichel in his midriff.
For good measure, Salah headed the loose ball against the crossbar and wafted unproductively at the rebound.
That was one Salah hat-trick you are unlikely to see repeated.
And for those who love a stat, that was the first Premier League penalty Liverpool have missed in over four years.
They had converted their previous 21 Premier League penalties, the last nine dispatched by Salah.
The law of averages had to come to someone’s aid and it just happened to be Leicester ’s.
To be fair, Brendan Rodgers’ men needed all the aid they could get.
A fair bit came from their own goalkeeper, whose one-handed save from another Salah strike was particularly impressive.
It was clear from the opening moments that Schmeichel was going to be the busier keeper but Leicester’s first half performance was not without its encouraging moments, Jamie Vardy’s movement demanding one outstanding defensive intervention from Joel Matip.
But Liverpool, having rested while their opponents were being pummelled by Manchester City on Boxing Day, were clearly the fresher side.
Combine that with the undeniable truth that they are, even on a level physical playing field, simply a better team, then there really should have been only one result.
But Leicester’s doggedness was superb, as was their willingness to stick to a game plan that relied exclusively on the counter-attack.
Considering how accomplished they can be in that discipline, the ploy was hardly a surprise and almost paid dividends when only the outstretched leg of Kostas Tsimikas averted a Vardy sitter.
Talking of sitters, no-one expected Sadio Mane to put one into the stands and the same character clipped another presentable opportunity into Schmeichel’s arms.
And Liverpool were made to pay when, only a few minutes after entering the fray, Lookman played a long-range one-two with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and finished with some aplomb.
Predictably, Liverpool threw everything at Leicester in the closing stages but could not find a way past Schmeichel.
And the ironic cheers when Salah sent a volley high and wide summed up the night.
The title battle just got a heck of a lot tougher for Klopp, Liverpool and Salah.
