Mo Salah's Hot Start

Get a buzzcut and play like the best player in the world.

That’s basically what Mo Salah has done this season and he is exceeding expectations of what I and many thought he would perform to this season.

I don’t know if it was because Arne Slot was coming in as a new manager if Liverpool wasn’t seen as title contenders this year, or maybe just much wasn’t expected of Mo Salah this year, but I haven’t seen a lot of Mo Salah praise in the news or on Twitter as much as I think there should be for the great season he is having. This is even coming off the back of a 4-0 thrashing of Bayer Leverkusen and a 2-0 win over Aston Villa where Mo Salah was a very influential player in both matches.

In the Champions and Premier League, he is on 19 G/A in 15 matches and is having one of his greatest seasons when it comes to creativity and creating shots and goals for other players as well.

So what is making him one of the top players this year? Let’s take a look at some of the data and other external factors to try to make sense of all of this.

Consistency

A good way in my opinion to judge just how well a player is playing is their consistency. Are they scoring goals? Are they creating goal-scoring opportunitites? Are they limiting mistakes? These questions are a lot easier asked and answered for attacking players than defenders and goalkeepers so lucky for us Mo Salah is an attacker.

If we look through the match logs of Liverpool this season, he is constantly finding either the back of the net or a teammate that is scoring.

It’s hard to find attackers who do both very consistently. A lot of attackers will go on scoring runs while not really providing any assists, or a player will just be an assist machine for other teammates but not really score.

Right now Mo Salah is at a .6 goals-per-match ratio and a .66 assists-per-match ratio in the Premier league and the Champions League. This is shocking especially given that he is now 32. Consistency is key, especially over what is looking like a long season for Liverpool.

Contract Situation

Mo Salah is in the final year of his contract, which can be a big incentive for a player to perform better on an individual level. If he plays well, he can probably expect a decent contract renewal from FSG, which can be enticing, especially given that he is in the latter stages of his career. Other teams might see him as a valuable free agent and try to sign him for the upcoming season.

The final year of a contract can be a difficult situation with the uncertainty around what will happen next season, and some research has shown that players will actually play worse and sometimes the team will play worse as a player can be more selfish and focus on individual statistics. (full research paper here)

It can be a big motivator so his contract will be a good situation to monitor.

Change of Manager

Salah up until this season had only known Jurgen Klopp and his tactics as a way of life in Liverpool, but this season Arne Slot has come in and has Liverpool firing as they lead the table in the Champions League as well as top of the table in the Premier League. Mo Salah was also quoted saying he is out of his comfort zone and it feels like when he first joined Liverpool. Everyone wants to work hard to impress the new boss and it looks like it is paying off.

When we look at his per 90 percentiles he is in the:

• 84th for goals

• 98th for expected goals

• 99th for assists and expected assists

• 99th for touches in the attacking box

• 82nd for shot creating actions

Slot plays a much more possession-based style compared to how Klopp played and it is allowing attackers and midfielders to have more time on the ball which could be a big impact on why we are seeing Mo Salah have a consistent season with his end product.

International Break Matches to Watch

We all know the international break isn’t that fun, but here’s a couple of good matches you can keep your eye on over the next two weeks:

1. Belgium vs Italy → Nov 14th

2. USA vs Jamaica → Nov 14th

3. Uruguay vs Colombia → Nov 15th

4. Spain vs Denmark → Nov 15th

5. Italy vs France → Nov 17th

6. Brazil vs Uruguay → Nov 19th

7. Womens Champions League today (Nov 13th) and next Tuesday and Wednesday as well