Fenway Sports Group is, and always has been, all about the numbers.
On the field, data and analytics are integral to its sports teams, helping to shape recruitment and build squads. At Liverpool, a whole department was built around Michael Edwards and Ian Graham to help propel the club back to Premier League and European glory.
Off the field, the bottom line is what tends to matter most to John W. Henry, Mike Gordon and Tom Werner, the men who run FSG from Boston. The self-sustaining business model has made the group financially successful but has often frustrated fans who pine for bigger player spending.
The FSG argument is that relying on the numbers leads to more rational decision-making, taking the emotion out of the equation.
Which brings us to Mohamed Salah. The business case for offering the Egyptian international a new contract at similar, or better, terms than his current deal (worth roughly £350,000 a week, and which expires at the end of the season) is not clear-cut: Salah will be 33 by the time the next Premier League season begins, an age where there can be no guarantees surrounding fitness or form.
And yet the views of Liverpool fans who hold up a banner reading ‘He fires a bow, now give Mo his dough’ — a reference to Salah’s new goal celebration — have an equally compelling case. With 10 goals and six assists in 12 appearances in the league and 12 goals and 10 assists in all competitions, he is one of the most in-form players in the world.
After his latest match-winning turn at Southampton on Sunday, Salah made some unusually pointed comments about Liverpool’s lack of a formal contract offer, saying he was “more out than in” at the club. It has cranked up the pressure on FSG.
So, in the spirit of the group’s fondness for hard data to underpin its decision-making, what are the numbers that back up Salah’s claim to be retained?
Salah may not be as involved in games as he once was, and he has evolved with age, but his output remains incredible. If the hierarchy digs into the data, the answer remains obvious about his value to the team.
It begins with availability. Salah’s dedication to looking after his body and maintaining his physique and condition (a point he underlined, again with pointed timing, by ripping off his shirt to celebrate his winner on Sunday) have allowed him to be almost an ever-present.
Before last season, he had featured in at least 34 league games in each campaign, a remarkable return for a player who is often subjected to physical treatment by opposing defenders. A hamstring injury troubled him last season, but that was the first time a muscle injury had kept him out of action for a number of weeks.
Generally, his fitness and availability is a given. He returned for pre-season in excellent physical condition and has started all 12 league matches so far.
Constant availability has allowed him to post elite attacking numbers every season since his arrival in 2017.
His start to the campaign has put him on course to set his best goalscoring numbers in a Premier League season since his first year at Anfield, when he set the record for goals in a single season (32, since broken by Erling Haaland). When goals and assists are combined, however, this is currently his most productive year in English football.
Creativity has become a more recognised part of Salah’s game. His assist numbers alone are trending towards setting a new high in the Premier League, beating the 13 he registered in 2021-22.
It cannot be ignored that questions were being asked about Salah towards the end of last season as he struggled for goals and form. He scored seven in his final 17 games — not an awful return, but below Salah’s standards.
It is the second time in his last three seasons that he has struggled to find the back of the net in the closing months of the campaign. In 2021-22, he scored only eight goals in his last appearances. Both of those came following mid-season Africa Cup of Nations tournaments.
The graphic above shows a rolling 900-minute average comparing a player’s expected goals per 90 compared to goals scored per 90 to see a player’s goalscoring form versus expectation. The red shade means they are scoring below the quality of chances they are getting and the blue shade means they are above expectations.
Since arriving in the Premier League, his goalscoring has fluctuated against his xG as it typically would for a striker – but there have rarely been many sustained periods of underperformance. Interestingly, in four of his previous seasons, he has finished the campaign on a slight dip compared to expectations. The trend this season, however, is one of outperforming expectations.
Salah has scored 29 per cent of Liverpool’s total goals this season, but this is not an outlier. He has accounted for 20 per cent or more of Liverpool’s goals in all competitions in all but one campaign – last season, when it was only 19 per cent – highlighting again just how big of a gap that would need filling if he was to leave. It equates to at least a fifth of Liverpool’s goals in every season, sometimes closer to a third.
His brilliance has seen him adapt, evolve and develop so that he is frequently still helping the team even if the goals aren’t flowing as regularly.
Salah is often described as Liverpool’s main man. He is an output monster, but not everything flows through him. He still ranks highly in open-play involvements, and is the most complete and balanced in terms of dual attacking threat since the start of last season when “Liverpool 2.0” was launched.
Speaking during the second episode of Liverpool’s The Reds Roundtable, he recounted a conversation with former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger from his early days on Merseyside when he asked him what the difference was between a good player and a really good player.
“He (Wenger) said, ‘I think the very, very good player is always focused on the game, even if he doesn’t have the momentum. He stays in the game until the last minute or until the whistle’,” Salah recalled.
The 3-2 victory over Southampton was the latest example of Salah bursting into life at a crucial moment. He had been quiet at the start of the second half, but sprang into action in an instant, scoring an equaliser from Ryan Gravenberch’s through ball and then converting a penalty.
That penalty was earned when his own cross to the back post had been handled, a more prevalent part of his assist arsenal this season.
With every passing game, Salah is proving his value, if not increasing it.
If Liverpool feel they cannot fit the forward into their budget and allow him to leave, then finding a replacement may be an impossible task because of his production levels compared to other forwards across Europe.
There are few better since the start of the 2022-23 season for goals and assists per 90 among forwards in Europe’s top five leagues. The caveat is Salah is doing it in the most competitive league, and from right wing rather than centre-forward.
Salah is a unique footballer, and if an agreement with Liverpool cannot be reached, finding his replacement would likely be an educated gamble on a player they would back to become the next world star.
It is a risky strategy. The alternative would be to keep the person with the pre-existing track record. Looking at the numbers, it feels like a no-brainer.
(Top photo: Robbie Jay Barratt — AMA/Getty Images)
