8 Premier League legends that Mohamed Salah has outdone with 11 games to spare
Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah is enjoying one of the all-time great individual Premier League campaigns.
Salah has fired Arne Slot’s Reds 11 points clear at the summit, having notched an outrageous total of 25 goals and 16 assists from just 27 appearances.
There are 11 games to go and already he’s hit a tally some all-time legends never managed in their entire Premier League careers.
Here are eight Premier League greats that Salah has outdone with 11 games to spare.
Robin van Persie
The way we remember Sir Alex Ferguson’s final season in charge of Manchester United is Van Persie coming up with match-winning brilliance every single week.
That’s not a million miles off. The Red Devils won the 2012-13 title at an absolute canter, wrapping it up with four games to spare, Van Persie – of course – getting on the scoresheet in mid-April’s title clincher against Aston Villa.
That season the Dutchman scored 26 goals to claim the Golden Boot, and notched a further nine assists.
It’s not even March and Salah is one goal off matching Van Persie’s 2012-13 goal tally, having also registered seven more assists. Ridiculous.
Salah is also one ahead of Van Persie’s best-ever individual campaign, his final season at Arsenal, in which he singlehandedly got them into the top four with 30 goals and 10 assists.
Cristiano Ronaldo
Ronaldo deservedly won the first of his five Ballon d’Or after his exceptional 2007-08 campaign, taking a major leap towards his era-defining icon status with a starring role in Manchester United’s historic Champions League and Premier League double.
That season Ronaldo registered 31 goals and six assists in the Premier League. Salah will do well to match that goal tally come the end of 2024-25, but he already has almost three times as many assists.
Not only that, but in Ronaldo’s outstanding 2007-08 campaign, he notched 42 goals and seven assists in all competitions.
Salah already has one more goal contribution (30 goals, 20 assists) in all comps – and we’ve got the League Cup final, 11 more Premier League games, and up to seven more Champions League knockout games to come.
Sergio Aguero
Salah needs three more Premier League goals to move ahead of Manchester City’s all-time top goalscorer in the Premier League scoring charts.
That’ll see him fifth, behind only Alan Shearer, Harry Kane, Wayne Rooney and Andrew Cole.
Aguero won five Premier League titles in his decade-long stint at The Etihad and was often enough one of City’s leading lights, having capped off his debut season with that last-gasp winner against QPR.
But none of the Argentinian’s 10 seasons in the English top flight were as prolific as Salah after just 27 games in 2024-25.
Salah has already matched his best-ever goalscoring season (26 goals in 2014-15), all the while registering twice as many assists.
Harry Kane
The England captain is one of only four players in Premier League history to top both the goals and assists charts in the same campaign.
Kane bested everyone else in the behind-closed-doors 2020-21 season, having notched 23 goals and 14 assists. Salah is ahead this season on both counts and it’s not even pancake day.
Numerically that was Kane’s best season in English football. He did hit a career-best 44 (36 goals, eight assists) in the Bundesliga last season at Bayern. Three off, you’d expect Salah to beat that soon too.
READ: The 4 players in Premier League history who topped both the assists & goalscoring charts
Fernando Torres
El Nino, surprisingly enough, doesn’t feature in the Premier League’s hundred club.
In fact, distil Torres’ game down just to the bare numbers and dare we say it… his record was a bit ordinary. Eighty-five goals and 29 assists in 212 appearances for Liverpool and Chelsea.
Only once, in his debut season, did he break the 20-goal mark. That 2007-08 campaign was his best in terms of numbers with 24 goals and four assists.
We don’t want to do Torres down. Nemanja Vidic and any regular watchers of the prime Barclays era will tell you the Spain international was a force of nature on his day.
But in terms of pure output, Salah is on another stratosphere.
It’s not completely beyond the realms of possibility that Liverpool’s Egyptian King ends the 2024-25 campaign with double the total goal contributions of prime Torres at his absolute best.
Maintain his current rate and he’ll end up on 57.
Didier Drogba
You might argue as a classic old-school No.9, it’s not entirely fair to throw assists into any judgements.
But Drogba actually offered more creativity for his dazzling array of Chelsea team-mates than you might remember.
In fact, the Ivorian topped the Premier League assists chart in Chelsea’s 2005-06 title-winning campaign with 12.
With 55 Premier League assists in total, he stands above the likes of Eden Hazard, Juan Mata, Mesut Ozil and Roberto Firmino in the all-time rankings.
Drogba’s best season in terms of numbers was 2009-10, in which he had a direct hand in 39 (29 goals, 10 assists) of the record 103 goals that Carlo Ancelotti’s scintillating Blues scored that season.
Weird to think now that Drogba briefly overlapped with Salah at Stamford Bridge. Imagine them in their prime together. There can be little question they’re the two greatest African footballers in Premier League history.
READ NEXT: The 10 players with the most goals + assists in a major European league season since 2000
TRY A QUIZ: Can you name the 36 players with 50+ Premier League goals and assists?
Kevin De Bruyne
Unlike Drogba, De Bruyne didn’t actually play with Salah. The Belgian departed Stamford Bridge in the same window that a young Salah was signed from Basel.
But imagine it; the two best Premier League players from the last decade lining up alongside one another. Chelsea fans can but dream.
De Bruyne has enjoyed multiple exceptional seasons during Manchester City’s era of unprecedented dominance.
But the best in terms of numbers was actually the 2019-20 season Salah’s Liverpool claimed the Premier League title, in which he scored 13 goals to go alongside his record-equalling 20 assists.
That assist record, shared with Thierry Henry, is now under serious threat. Salah needs five more in the last 11 games of 2024-25. You’d be brave to bet against it.
READ: The 10 players with the most goals & assists in a single Premier League season
Wayne Rooney
Third in the all-time goalscorers chart and fourth in the all-time assists chart, there is no questioning Rooney’s Premier League legacy.
Surprisingly enough, the Manchester United legend never actually won a Golden Boot. He broke the 20-goal mark twice, notching 26 in 2009-10 and 27 in 2011-12, but in those years he was unlucky to be bested by prime Drogba and Van Persie respectively.
Alongside the 27 goals Rooney scored in 2011-12, he notched a further five assists.
To think that Rooney’s best goal contribution season was nine off Salah (with 11 games to spare) has fried our brains a bit.