Statistics correct as at 10th July 2020

In 2017/18, Mohamed Salah had a season for the ages. His 44 goals for Liverpool gave him the second top scoring campaign in the club’s remarkable history. Salah also only made 52 appearances to amass his tally whereas Ian Rush played 63 games when he scored 47 goals in 1983/84.

Nobody counted assists in Rushie’s day, but Salah set up 14 goals in his debut season for the club – second only to Roberto Firmino, with 16, in 2017/18 – to give him a total of 58 goal involvements in all competitions.

After such an incredible run of form, a cooling off was inevitable. On Understat’s model, Salah scored roughly seven more non-penalty goals than expected in the league, and picked up a couple of extra assists too. If that’s a greater over-achievement than Lionel Messi has achieved (since 2014/15) it would be unreasonable to expect a repeat.

Yet while there was a drop off, Salah has still made the most goal contributions by any Liverpool player in each of the last two seasons. But far more interesting than the unavoidable drop in his goal total is the evolution of other aspects of Salah’s game during his time spent under the tutelage of Jürgen Klopp.

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