With two games left of the 2020/21 season, it is beyond any doubt that Mohamed Salah will finish as Liverpool’s top scorer for the fourth year in a row.
His total of 31 goals is over double the 14 which Sadio Mane, his nearest challenger, has netted in this campaign.
If the gap remains broadly the same, it will be the 11th time since the Reds were promoted to the top flight in 1962 that their top scorer has netted at least twice as many goals as the player with the second most. The gap has only been more than the current 17 goal margin five times in that period too.
As Salah has taken all seven of Liverpool’s penalties this season, he has enjoyed a clear advantage. His Senegalese counterpart would only be three goals adrift had he been taking and scoring the spot kicks during this campaign.
But there is one area in which the Reds’ number 11 has been stronger than ever before in 2020/21, and that’s making the most of mistakes and loose balls in the opposition’s penalty box.
If we choose to ignore penalties, direct free-kicks and own goals, then Liverpool have bagged 23 goals in all competitions this season which did not have an official assist. Salah has been the scorer for 11 of them, with no other player in Jurgen Klopp’s squad accounting for more than three.
Across his first three seasons on Merseyside, 23.5 percent of his non-penalty goals did not have an assist recorded against them, but in this campaign the proportion in this category has been 45.8 percent.
The majority of the strikes have been instinctive first-time efforts, but there have been other aspects of commonality too.
It is remarkable how many of the goals have been from relatively far out and not tap-ins. The only one from inside the six-yard box was the equaliser against Aston Villa, when Emi Martinez could only parry Andy Robertson’s shot.
The average distance from goal of Salah’s unassisted goals has been 11.3 yards, with four of them being from at least 15 yards out. It’s not easy to score from there at the best of times, never mind when receiving the ball somewhat unexpectedly.
Four of the goals have seen Salah profit from Opta-defined defensive errors. A weak headed clearance by Yerry Mina was lashed home at Goodison Park, before he latched onto a poor piece of control by Conor Coady to open the scoring when Wolves visited Anfield.
The Egyptian also made the most of some sloppy opposition passing in the Champions League, exploiting mistakes by Erik Sviatchenko and Marcel Sabitzer of Midtjylland and RB Leipzig respectively.
And even if they haven’t all resulted from opposition mistakes as such, Salah has proven adept at slotting home when a defender has got a slight touch and diverted the ball in his direction. Think of his goal against Leeds on the opening weekend or the effort versus Newcastle more recently and you can picture this scenario perfectly.
It’s not that he has been having more of these slightly unusual opportunities either. His average over the past four seasons is 30.3 unassisted shots per campaign in the Premier League, and his total for 2020/21 stands at 29 with two games to play.
With two games of the season remaining, Salah is tied with Harry Kane in the Premier League Golden Boot race, with 22 goals apiece.
But 14 of the Tottenham man’s 18 non-penalty goals have been assisted, so if it comes down to making the most of an unexpected opportunity in the penalty box, then Salah may yet have an edge and claim the prize.
