Mohamed Salah is achieving the seemingly impossible right now. The Liverpool star is averaging multiple career highs.
As you’ve likely noticed, Mohamed Salah is playing very well. In fact, he might be the best player on the planet right now.
One look at his numbers gives you an idea of how well he’s doing. Salah has nine goals across the Premier League and Champions League, with another three assists. That’s 12 direct goal contributions in nine games.
And the way he’s doing it is quite spectacular, too. Salah’s assist for Sadio Mane against Manchester City was a memorable one, carving through the league’s tightest defence before playing a perfect pass.
Yet, no one is really talking about it. His goal was just that good as Salah left four players for dead in the box and found the far corner with his weaker foot. It was a spectacular strike.
But we think these things don’t entirely do justice to Salah. He’s really performing the impossible right now.
The impossible Mohamed Salah
One thing you might have noticed this season is that Salah appears to be a lot wider than normal. It’s a tactical change that makes Liverpool far less predictable down the right flank.
Trent Alexander-Arnold comes inside a lot more, with Salah offering the width. Harvey Elliott, before his injury, would interchange with the two of them to create a very interesting triple-threat.
Essentially, then, Salah has sacrificed his positioning for the good of the team. To do that and still keep up his elite attacking output is actually quite astonishing.
But it goes even further than that. For instance, Salah won four tackles against City on Sunday – no one else on the pitch matched that. He also won an interception and created two chances.
And those three things are becoming more and more apparent in Salah’s game. He’s averaging 0.7 tackles per game, which is higher than in any other season for Liverpool.
You can say the same about his interceptions (0.3 per game) and for creating chances (2.6 per game).
Defensively, then, Salah is putting in the best work of his Liverpool career. He’s also creating far more chances than at any other point. The 29-year-old has never averaged more than 2.2 for Liverpool.
In fact, Salah’s best creative season came for AS Roma in 16/17. He picked up 11 assists that year, creating 2.3 chances per game. He’s currently beating that rate, then.
So right now, Salah is creating more for teammates than he ever has. He’s putting in better defensive work than we’ve ever seen. We’re seeing him play from a wider position, too, to benefit others. And, against all the odds, he’s doing all that while keeping his scoring numbers sky-high.
We genuinely didn’t think that would be possible. What Salah is doing right now is truly phenomenal – and likely even better than most realise.