It has become almost common football parlance in recent years when discussing data. You can barely refer to any attacking statistic without starting the sentence: “Only Mohamed Salah …”
The Egyptian has been a sensation since signing for Liverpool in 2017, scoring and creating goals that have fired the Reds to glory at home and abroad.
And he is still at it. Earlier this month he found the net in Liverpool’s 2-1 comeback win over Brighton with his 164th Premier League goal, taking him above the former Kop hero Robbie Fowler and up to eighth place in the competition’s all-time scoring charts.
Then, with his assist and 165th goal in the 2-0 win over Aston Villa, Salah became the first player in Europe’s top five leagues this season to reach double figures for goals (10) and assists (10) in all competitions, doing so in just 17 appearances.
He was joined on that particular stage by compatriot and the Eintracht Frankfurt star Omar Marmoush the following day, which allowed people to once again say: “Only Mohamed Salah has also got double figures for goals and assists in all competitions this season.”
Liverpool have started life after Jürgen Klopp like a house on fire, with Arne Slot winning nine of his first 11 games in the Premier League, while they are also through to the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup and sit top of the inaugural league phase of the Champions League as the only team with four wins from four.
Unsurprisingly, Salah has been one of the key figures in getting them to a point where they are five points clear at the top of the Premier League after their win against Villa. The Opta supercomputer now has them as favourites to go on and win the title. Only in 2019-20 (31 – W10 D1) – when they won the league – have Liverpool collected more points after 11 games of a Premier League season.
Against Unai Emery’s side, Salah’s assist for Darwin Núñez’s opener was not exactly deliberate. He was trying to run through on goal himself before being brought down by Leon Bailey, with Núñez racing on to the loose ball and finding the net, but it was Salah’s awareness to speed down the field on the counterattack after a Villa corner that set things in motion.
His goal late to then seal the win was classic Salah. After intercepting the ball from Diego Carlos on the halfway line, he raced towards goal before composing himself and finishing past the Yashin Trophy winner Emiliano Martínez. Salah scored and assisted in a Premier League match for the 35th time, leaving him just one behind Wayne Rooney (36) for doing so the most times in the competition’s history.
It was another productive performance from the 32-year-old, after his pair of assists the previous Tuesday helped Liverpool to a 4-0 rout of the German champions Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League.
His reaching double figures for goals and assists in just 17 appearances makes him the fastest anyone has done so for Liverpool in the last 40 seasons. Luis Suárez is the next fastest, having done it in 23 appearances (2013-14).
To reverse the previously mentioned “only Mo Salah” trend slightly, only Harry Kane (24), Marmoush (24) and Robert Lewandowski (21) have more goal involvements than Salah in all competitions this season among players in the top five leagues.
It is the fourth season in a row that Salah has reached double figures for goals and assists, and he is also currently at his best pace ever for goal involvements per 90 since arriving on Merseyside over seven years ago. With 20 goal involvements in just 1,347 minutes, Salah is averaging a goal or assist every 67.5 minutes in all competitions this season. His sensational debut campaign at the club in 2017-18, in which he scored 44 goals and recorded a further 14 assists, saw him average an involvement every 71 minutes.
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Salah has always scored goals, and his repertoire has also always included top-level chance creation. He has managed double figures for assists in every season at Liverpool apart from 2020-21 (six). He seems likely to end this season with his highest tally for the Reds in a single campaign, though. Salah needs just seven more to beat his best return of 16 assists in 2022-23. He and Marmoush are the only players on double figures for assists in Europe’s top five leagues in all competitions this season, while only seven players across those leagues have created more chances from open play than Salah (30).
He has certainly been Liverpool’s main man again this season. Compared with his teammates, Salah has almost twice as many goal involvements as anyone else (Luis Díaz – 11) and has created at least nine more chances from open play than anyone else (Cody Gakpo – 21), with his 30 being 12 more than Liverpool’s usual creator-in-chief Trent Alexander-Arnold (18).
He has been involved in 100 open-play, shot-ending attacking sequences in all competitions, which is at least 24 more than any other Liverpool player. An attacking sequence involvement is made up of shots, chances created and playing a part in the buildup to a shot.
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With all that said, there seems little doubt Salah is still at, or close to, the top of his game, which makes it all the more concerning for Liverpool fans that his contract expires at the end of the season. It is perhaps understandable the club were not in a rush to offer him a bumper new deal in the summer. Salah’s form was as disappointing as anyone’s as Liverpool’s title challenge faded in 2023-24.
He played just once in the Premier League between New Year’s Day and the home game against Manchester City on 10 March. From the point he returned until the end of the season, Salah recorded just three goal involvements in 11 league games, with a penalty in the 2-2 draw at Manchester United and a goal and an assist in the 4-2 win over Tottenham after the league title had long since vanished out of sight.
However, if there were any doubts about Salah’s levels, how he would work in Slot’s system and if he is still worth the undoubtedly significant money it will cost to extend his deal, there surely are not any more. Last season, Salah was sometimes criticised for staying too wide. You can see from his touch-zone maps below from last season and this season that, if anything, he is coming centrally even less often now under Slot.
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He is, though, getting into that space on the right side of the penalty area more often, and that is where he does most of his best work, as his goal involvement map shows.
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Reports suggest Liverpool are indeed in talks with Salah, along with Virgil van Dijk and Alexander-Arnold, whose deals also expire next summer. The strength of the Egyptian’s hand has undoubtedly increased further in recent weeks, which led to a fan holding up a sign at the Villa game that read: “He fires a bow. Now give Mo his dough,” in reference to his bow-and-arrow goal celebration.
Salah’s productivity since he arrived at Liverpool has been nothing short of remarkable. He has recorded 221 goals and 97 assists in 366 appearances for the club and has never scored fewer than 23 times in a season.
How long can he continue at this level? That’s anyone’s guess, but if any player has earned the benefit of the doubt, it’s surely him. Liverpool fans certainly hope the Egyptian King continues to reign over them for a long time to come.
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