Mo Salah on Track for His Most Dominant Season – What the Numbers Say!

In a season when Liverpool look likely to claim their 20th League title after a brilliant debut campaign for new Head Coach Arne Slot, one player has stood head and shoulders above everybody else in the League. That player is Liverpool’s star forward Mo Salah. Salah has racked up 41 goal contributions at the time of writing so far, this Premier League campaign, including 25 goals and 16 assists. He is on course to become the first man since Thierry Henry to achieve 20 or more goals and assists in the same season, with Henry hitting 24 League goals and 20 assists for Arsenal back in the 2002/2003 season. Manchester City’s Kevin de Bruyne is the only other player since the start of the Premier League to hit 20 assists in a single campaign. He did that in the 2019/20 campaign, further highlighting the rarity of the highs that Salah is hitting this season with 11 games of the current campaign still to play.

Salah on Course for Best Ever Season

As I have said, Thierry Henry holds the record for hitting 20 or more goals and assists in a single season, back in 2002/03. Salah is on course to top that in the coming weeks, lying just four assists away from surpassing the great French striker’s record. If as expected Salah surpasses Henry, the next record he will be after will be the records of Andy Cole and Alan Shearer. The two former England strikers hold the record for most goal contributions in a single season, with forty-seven. The two men set those records in the early 1990s, when the topflight of English football was played over a 42-game season, as opposed to the 38-game term it is now. Salah has just to hit another seven goals or assists to break their record also, which would see the Egyptian star achieve the greatest ever individual season in Premier League history.

The remarkable thing about Salah’s great season is that he is doing it when his Liverpool future is up in the air. His contract runs out at the end of the 2024/25 season, and there appears to be no breakthrough in the contract talks between the club and the player thus far. One might think that would be distracting for many players, but it hasn’t had any effect on Salah as he embarks on what surely now will be a history breaking record for a Premier League player.

What’s Made Salah’s Great Season

Salah has been a phenomenon for Liverpool since his move to Anfield in 2017. His debut season saw him hit 32 goals and 10 assists as he announced himself to the world as one of the best players on the planet. The fact that he is only one behind that record already this campaign shows what a world class season Salah is having in Arne Slot’s debut campaign. The former Feyenoord manager deserves a lot of credit for facilitating the unbelievable season Salah is having. Salah is 32 now but he shows no signs of slowing down when it comes to the influence he has over his Liverpool team. That is why losing him could be a seismic loss to the Anfield club.

Salah has always been a tremendous athlete but under Slot’s stewardship he has certainly changed the way he plays. Slot has reduced the defensive responsibility that Salah has in the general team structure, allowing his star player to be fully ready to affect the game in the opposition’s final third as much as possible. Overall Liverpool are less intense in their pressing and running under Slot compared with Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, but in the likes of Cody Gakpo, Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota he has willing deputies who are able to help Salah maximise his return.

Conclusion

Mo Salah has scored or assisted 64% of Liverpool’s Premier League goals so far this season, highlighting what a career defining season the Egyptian is having for the Anfield club. Despite his contract situation refusing to be settled, Salah’s form has improved this season, which should embolden Liverpool fans as they potentially eye up Premier League, Carabao Cup and Champions League success in Arne Slot’s first as Liverpool boss. Salah has now hit 180 goals for Liverpool in the Premier League in just 277 appearances. He ranks sixth in the overall Premier League’s Top Goal scorer charts, now just two behind Sergio Aguero, and five behind Andy Cole in fourth place. How many goals and assists Salah ends up with this season is still to be determined, but whatever he finishes up with, an incredible individual season may yet go down as one of the best season’s ever for a Premier League footballer.

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