Ballon d’Or 2025? 9 stats that show Mohamed Salah is on another level right now
Mohamed Salah has arguably been the best player in the world in the opening weeks of the 2024-25 campaign, consistently making decisive contributions in the final third for a Liverpool side that are absolutely flying.
Liverpool find themselves top of the Premier League with a big five-point lead over Manchester City, while they’re also at the summit of the giant 32-team Champions League table as the only side to have won out of four so far.
Having been controversially omitted from the 30-man shortlist for the 2024 Ballon d’Or, Salah has emerged as one of the leading contenders for the prestigious award next year.
It’s still very early days and the decisive matches are yet to come, but Liverpool look well set to challenge for the major silverware – which will be particularly important in a year where there are no major international tournaments. If Salah can keep up these levels throughout the whole season and fire Liverpool to Premier League or Champions League glory, he’ll surely be among the leading contenders.
There’s been extra attention on the 32-year-old, who is well into the final 12 months of his contract at Anfield and continually faces questions over his future.
But Liverpool manager Arne Slot believes that the star attacker is capable of emulating era-defining greats to continue producing brilliant performances into his mid-thirties.
“There is no reason at the moment to think that he is dropping in terms of level,” Liverpool’s head coach told reporters in midweek.
“That’s not what you see when you look at his numbers or what you see when he plays. I don’t know how to say this in English, but I cannot tell you how the future will look like.
“Cristiano Ronaldo, what age is he at the moment? [39]. Messi is still incredible [at 37]. But there are also players like me who weren’t as good any more at 33, not that I was so good at 26. I don’t know what the future brings but I do know Mo is in a very good place.”
“I think he has the best numbers of all our attackers,” Slot added, speaking to TNT Sports, following another Salah masterclass in Saturday night’s 2-0 victory over Aston Villa.
“All our attackers have good numbers, but he stands out.”
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TRY A QUIZ: Can you name every club Mohamed Salah has scored against for Liverpool?
Here are nine stats that show just how good Salah has been for Liverpool so far in 2024-25:
– Salah is the first player in all of Europe’s five major leagues to officially hit double figures for both goals and assists this season – 10 of each.
– Not only is he the first player in Europe to reach that milestone, but he’s reached it in record time – November 9th is the earliest point that any player in Premier League history has hit double figures for both goals and assists.
– That works out as a goal every 134 minutes, an assist every 134 minutes and a direct goal contribution every 67.5 minutes so far in 2024-25.
– To put that in context, Salah is currently bettering his goal-and-assist output from his debut, most prolific season at Anfield. In 2017-18 he notched 44 goals and 15 assists for Jurgen Klopp’s Reds in all competitions, which worked out as a goal contribution every 69.8 minutes.
– Liverpool’s Egyptian King has either scored or assisted in 11 of his 14 starts in all competitions so far this season.
– He’s also scored and assisted against Ipswich, Manchester United, Bologna, Chelsea and Aston Villa. Three of those in the Premier League – Salah is now level with Wayne Rooney as joint-top in Premier League history (35 games) for scoring and assisting in the same game.
– In the past week, Salah has overtaken the great Thierry Henry for both Champions League assists (17 to 16) and Premier League assists (75 to 74). Henry spent eight seasons at Arsenal, while Salah is currently on his eighth season with Liverpool.
– Talking league output only, only Robert Lewandowski (17), Harry Kane (16) and Omar Marmoush (16) have notched more goal contributions than Salah (14; eight goals, six assists) in Europe’s top five leagues so far this season.
– Salah’s nine goals in the Champions League and Premier League have come from 7.4xG, meaning that he’s overperforming his ‘expected goals’ by a rate of +1.6xG. That’s efficiency.