Written on 25/03/2026
And just like that, Liverpool are set to bid farewell to another of their absolute legends at the end of this season. Mohamed Salah’s announcement that he will leave the club in the summer has brought about articles of all types highlighting how important and how good a player he has been for the Reds. Moreover, pieces about him being an exceptional person on and off the field have brought to light that there is more to football, and Salah excelled at that as well.
This article won’t go over that again. You will find many pieces on that, and on the records he set at Liverpool and in the Premier League that may never be broken. In this article, we will instead try to provide context to the Herculean numbers the Egyptian has produced in a red shirt and why those aspects of his contributions will be remembered for years to come.
Let’s start with the goals scored in the Premier League per season and how important they were to the team’s cause in terms of winning games and points.
The 2020/21 campaign aside, at least 20% of Salah’s goals in the Premier League have been game-winning for Liverpool in every season. 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2022/23 saw the proportion go beyond the 35% mark, which is simply insane.
When it comes to points won through goals scored (be it one for a draw or three for a win), his first season at Anfield was simply out of this world, with 44% of the team’s points coming from his goals. He did not touch the 40% mark after that (although he kept the number relatively high) until last season, where his goals earned 40.47% of the points for the Reds as they walked the league in Arne Slot’s first season in charge.
So, while we can drool over the consistency of his goalscoring from the right wing every season, the added context of the percentage of those goals winning games and points for Liverpool makes it all the more impressive.
As Gary Neville rightly pointed out during one of his commentary stints in a Liverpool game, while the Reds have had great forwards over the past decade, Salah has always been the “difference-maker”.
We move from just goals to overall goal contributions (goals + assists) and look at how much of the team’s total goals came through Salah, whether via a goal or an assist, across all competitions. Just a heads up: the numbers are insane.
Barring this season, which has been an aberration in more ways than one, Salah has been Liverpool’s top contributor in each of the last eight seasons for goals and assists in all competitions (see team rank column). It is no surprise to see that the highest proportion of goal contributions came last season (46.34%).
He has crossed or come close to the 40% mark in three other seasons as well. These are not normal numbers, let me tell you. For one player to contribute 30% or more through goals or assists every season for eight years in a top team is jaw-dropping when you look back at it.
In modern football, where the schedule is as congested as it can get for a player at a club that regularly competes in European competitions, Salah’s availability throughout his time at Anfield has been nothing short of phenomenal. We have a couple of data visuals/tables below showing the availability numbers he has managed to achieve at Anfield.
The rest of this article is for paid subscribers (only £3.50 to access at least six data-driven breakdowns, player and team analysis, scout reports per month; £4 off for an annual subscription).