And In The End: Farewell, Mo.
One of Liverpool's greatest ever players is leaving the club this week. Let's celebrate what he has achieved over how the story is ending.
“It seems like the club has thrown me under the bus”
“I want to see Liverpool go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear”
"We fought together through the hardest time in our life”
Mohamed Salah. December 6th, May 15th, March 24th.
Nobody could have predicted that Mohamed Salah would’ve made more headlines for post-match comments and social media posts than for goals and assists in the final season of his Liverpool career.
It won’t matter in years to come. His gripes about being benched or how the team has performed will be long forgotten when supporters reminisce about the Egyptian King. The positive memories overwhelm the occasional low points. It feels sad now; it won’t last.
Salah’s recent downturn in form was as much of a surprise as his initial rampant success. Members of the Liverpool brains trust told me at an OptaPro forum in 2018 that even their expectations had been surpassed by what the former Roma man had delivered in those first few months.
What Salah has achieved with the club has been truly remarkable. Is it possible to change the world within eight years? It’s been done before.
If the Beatles had split up today, their debut single Love Me Do would have been released in November 2018. That feels far too recent for that to be true. Can you remember the best new bands from that year? Genius moves life fast.
There obviously aren’t too many direct parallels between Liverpool’s best band and one of the club’s greatest ever players, even if the timelines broadly fit. Paul McCartney announced he’d left the Beatles 2,865 days after the group had signed with Parlophone, just one week longer than the gap between Salah inking his Reds contract and the title-sealing 5-1 win over Tottenham.
Hindsight tells us this may have been the final Liverpool match in which Salah was truly happy with his performance, the outcome, everything. The Reds didn’t win another game last term, before the death of Diogo Jota summoned a dark cloud that is unlikely to have fully lifted. Maybe it never will for those who knew him best. We may eventually learn the full extent of the impact that the tragedy had upon 2025/26. For now, we can merely guess.
So, although he didn’t get the chance to break America on The Ed Sullivan Show, make a few films or release Sgt Pepper in 2022, Salahmania is a fair description of his first campaign. He was initially part of a Fab Four too.
This Beatles comparison didn’t last as Philippe Coutinho’s exit left Salah to form one of the greatest ever front threes with Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mané. They all scored in the Egyptian’s debut, a 3-3 draw at Watford, and never really stopped.
While not an official assist in Opta terms, Salah was fouled for the penalty from which his Brazilian colleague netted that day. Given how referees have treated him in the years since, it’s something of a wonder that the spot kick was awarded.
When it comes to Premier League matches in which players have both scored and set up a goal, Liverpool’s current number 11 has no equals. His twin threat has been unrivalled in the modern era of English football.
This formidable productivity has carried Salah to third on the Premier League standings for goal contributions, with 286. He trails Alan Shearer (324) and Wayne Rooney (310), not that he could have hoped to match either when playing over 11,000 minutes fewer. Of the 10 men with the most combined goals and assists in Premier League history, only Sergio Agüero and Thierry Henry collated their tally more rapidly.
Even then, Salah’s contribution combined with his longevity is arguably unparalleled in this competition. He was averaging a goal contribution per 90 minutes across his Premier League career as recently as Liverpool’s 3-2 win at Newcastle earlier this season.
If you round up from one decimal place instead of two, he still would be; whatever happens against Brentford, Salah will end his time in the Premier League (assuming he doesn’t remain in England) with 0.96 goals and assists per 90. We will be blessed to see such phenomenal attacking consistency in a red shirt ever again.
The proportion of non-penalty goals and assists that truly mattered is an area in which the 33-year-old has fallen a little short against his elite Premier League peers. The big moments. The contributions that occurred when either level or no more than one goal up or down. Never mind the cakewalks and lost causes, what have you got when it really matters? Leave your stat-padding at the door.
As impressive as he has so often been at Anfield, a higher proportion of Salah’s ‘important’ (by this measure) contributions have been on the road. Perhaps that is inevitable with big wins unlikelier to occur. Nonetheless, despite being 38 shy of Shearer’s goal contribution record in the Premier League, he is just nine behind Rooney’s leading tally of 139 for away matches alone.
Salah has also delivered for Liverpool away from home in Europe. He scored the opener in the Champions League final in 2019, claimed the competition’s fastest ever hat-trick, struck against both Milan clubs in the San Siro and bagged an iconic goal directly in front of his adoring public at the Etihad. This map shows where he has appeared and scored on the road for the Reds.
Whenever, wherever Liverpool needed a goal, he was there more often than not. He tied a generation of very successful Reds together too. Salah either assisted or was set up to score by 37 different teammates. It would probably take you some time to even name that many Liverpool players from the last nine seasons, never mind jointly contribute to goals with them. You can see how the top 20 for shared goal involvements with Salah has evolved here.
The best part of this video? It could be the sight of Darwin Núñez charging into view with only about 100 goals to go, eventually forcing his way to fifth in the standings. Salah has put his pleasure in playing with the Uruguayan on record, with this chart illustrating why.
He probably enjoyed playing with most of these guys, in fairness. It’s been a remarkable nine years. As fantastic as Salah has been for Liverpool, he wouldn’t have achieved anything without his teammates, the two managers (with whom he has occasionally fallen out) and the support of the fans. It is his relationship with the latter that usually forms some basis of his rare public comments, just as his bond with Kopites has driven him to succeed on the pitch.
And, in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. Farewell, Mo.
In case you’ve not seen, the newsletter is ending this month. Here’s why:
I wanted to mess around with a few different visualisations and Mohamed Salah provides more fodder for them than just about anybody else.
The big question is: with hindsight, should Liverpool have let him go last season? And imagine the reaction if they had!!
Interesting statistics, thanks.
I am Swedish, but never a Zlatan fan he is way too much star, not a team player, with a terrible arrogance.
I have never been a big Salah fan but I have admired his incredible skills. However, I got tired of him last year with his ridiculous pressure campaign to get a new generous contract. But after his very well planned interview, “thrown under the bus”, I started to dislike the former star who had forgotten he had team mates…Now he is destroying even more his reputation after his latest Instagram post. Very happy that he is finally leaving.
So I guess I am a fan who really like team players, not arrogant team destroying stars.