Mo Salah, THE best attacker in the Premier League.

(And possibly the best player)

An education & thread:

-We'll start by looking at a range of aspects of an attacker, comparing him to the other candidates for the 'best attacker in the Premier League'

-I'll be comparing his numbers since he joined the league to these players:

-Mane
-Aguero
-Aubameyang
-Kane
-Sterling
-Vardy

Goalscoring:

-PL goals since 17/18:

Salah-70
Aguero-58
Kane-58
Vardy-57
Aubameyang-49
Sterling-46
Mane-46

-PL mins per goal since 17/18:

Aguero-101
Salah-120
Aubameyang-124
Kane-126
Vardy-144
Mane-160
Sterling-161

-Mo Salah sits comfortably top in terms of goals scored, and sits second behind Aguero in terms of mins per goal.

-We can see his goal scoring ability is quite far ahead of any other premier winger.

-The only player to have a better mins per goal ratio, is Sergio Aguero.

-A quick sidetone on Aguero, he is obviously one of the best strikers in premier history, but his minutes per (x) ratios come with a pinch of salt.

- He plays a lot less minutes per game and per season than any player on the list.

- Aguero has played an average of 73 mins per game since 17/18, and an average of 1949 mins per season.

-For comparison, Salah plays 84 mins per game, and 2807 per season.

-Ratios tend to (not always) get worse as more time is played.

-It's why Aguero, despite his generational goal scoring ability, has only won 1 golden boot, and doesn't top the list of goals like Salah does, there’s no guarantee he could keep it up and have a 30+ goal season.

-Aguero tends to be injured more often, and usually comes on late and scores, or scores and comes off for the last 30 mins.

-Not to take away from how good he is, just an explanation of his very very good minutes ratio.

-Back to the thread.

- Possibly the best way to judge a players goal scoring/finishing ability, is by looking at the difference between Goals and Expected goals(xG).

-I'll give a quick explanation of what that means.

-xG gives a value to each shot taken, based on how likely it is to go in, based off many variables, such as assist type, shot angle and distance from goal, whether it was a headed shot and whether it was defined as a big chance.

-I'll give you some examples.

-This long ranged shot would be given an xG value of 0.02, meaning there would be a 2% chance of it going in.

-And this 1v1 against the keeper would be given an xG of around 0.5, meaning the player would be excepted to score 50% of the time.

-If you add up the xG value all of these shots a player takes, that would be the xG (expected number of goals scored) of a player over a season.

-Now, comparing xG with the actual number of goals scored, can see how good of a finisher/shooter a player is.

-If a player scores 5 more goals than expected, his xG difference value would be -5.0.

-The lower the number, the better the finisher, as they have done better than expected with the chances given.

-Here is the xG differences since 17/18 for the attackers we are looking at:

Vardy: -2.79
Salah: -2.51
Kane: -2.37
Mane: -1.76
Aguero: -1.51
Aubameyang: -1.42
Sterling: +0.84

-So these numbers show, despite his criticism, Salah is the 2nd most clinical of these attackers.

-Here's the table without including penalties:

Vardy: -2.52
Salah: -2.21
Kane: -1.99
Mane: -1.67
Aubameyang: -1.46
Aguero: -1.12
Sterling: +0.67

-Mo salah top of goals scored, second in the goals per min, and the second most clinical finisher.

-Some more numbers that show Salah's incredible goal scoring ability, especially in the big games and when needed.

- PL game winning goals since 17/18:
Salah 24
Kane 18
Aguero 17
Mane 15
Aubameyang 13
Sterling 13
Vardy 12

-PL goals and assists since 17/18 against the 'Big 6'+ Leicester City (As Vardy would have a 6 game advantage, and they are the best non big 6 team anyway):

Salah 22
Aguero 20
Vardy 20
Sterling 18
Kane 17
Mane 13
Aubameyang 10

-Big. Game. Player.

--Another list that compares Salah with some PL greats.

-Most goals scored in first 100 Premier League appearances:

Alan Shearer 79
Mohamed Salah 70
Ruud van Nistelrooy 68
Sergio Aguero 64
Fernando Torres 63

-Very impressive as it includes his time at Chelsea.

But is Salah just a goal scorer?

-We'll now look at the creativity and team play aspects of the game.

-Salah is often criticised and labelled as "greedy". Now whilst most of that is from fans and non pundits, the numbers tell a completely different story.

- Firstly, here's the numbers for minutes per goals+assists in the PL since 17/18:

Aguero: 78
Salah: 90
Aubameyang: 103
Sterling: 109
Kane: 110
Mane: 121
Vardy: 124

-You can see the larger difference between Salah and the others on this last, compared to just the goal scoring one.

-Salah's ability to assist is good, especially when compared to players like Auba, Vardy, Kane and Mane, boasting a better mins per assist than those players.

-Sergio Aguero maintains his brilliant ratio, as him and Sterling are the only 2 ahead of Mo in terms of minutes per assist since 17/18.

-However, assists often rely on finishing, not necessarily the creativity of the player.

- If we look at minutes per big chance created in the PL since 17/18:

Salah: 211
Sterling: 238
Aguero: 292
Mane: 320
Vardy: 410
Aubameyang: 435
Kane:521.

-Mo showing his ability to not just score, but create chances, and more importantly, big chances.

-We can also look at data about key passes (passes that lead to shots).

-Mins per Key passes in the PL since 17/18:

Salah: 1.88
Sterling: 1.88
Mane: 1.69
Aguero: 1.4
Kane: 1.03
Aubameyang:1
Vardy: 0.87

-2 more lists Salah tops, mins per big chances created and key passes.

-The myth of him being greedy, completely blown out the water.

-Dribbling ability is also a key part of an attackers game.

-Here's mins per successful dribble in the PL since 17/18:

Sterling: 41
Salah:43
Mane: 48
Aguero:49
Kane:68
Auba:118
Vardy:170

-Salah 2nd again, only beaten by Raheem Sterling.

- So far we've seen the consistency of Salah, great finishers like Vardy unable to dribble and create much, great dribblers like Sterling being the least clinical.

-Salah has performed really well in all metrics.

-Although this thread is focusing on the PL, Mo salah is one of those players who performs exceptionally well at the highest level.

-Champions League goals and assists since 17/18:

Salah: 28
Mane: 22
Sterling: 22
Kane: 21
Aguero 14

-Vardy & Aubameyang N/A.

-We've seen his consistency over the past 3 years, but some people like to judge players for their prime.

-Mo salah 17/18:

52 apps
44 goals (32 in the PL, a record)
16 assists
PL golden boot
PFA player of the year
PL player of the season
African footballer of the year

-Now, the title says (and possibly the best player), but its difficult to compare different positions, especially with stats.

-However, here's some data from the trusty http://whoscored.com .

-Average match rating in the PL since 17/18:

De Bruyne: 7.59
Salah: 7.58
Aguero: 7.51
VVD: 7.4
Mane:7.4

- Most Motm awards since 17/18 (Out of the top 5 performing players in the PL, listed above):

Salah:21
Mane:14
De Bruyne: 11
Aguero:11
VVD: 7

-Only Man City's Kevin De Bruyne with a higher average match rating (0.01) higher, and Salah with 7 more Motm awards than any other player.

-Some more facts that could convince you of his brilliance, which show how important he is to a winning team...

- He has the highest win % of any player to play 100 PL games:

Salah(including 13 Chelsea games): 73%
Paulo Fereira: 72%
Makelele: 71%
Vidic: 71%

-Has back to back golden boots, 2 completed seasons and has as many golden boots as Drogba, RVP and Owen.

-Another thing which often isn't judged, is the ability to not get injured. Whether it is a genetic thing (like natural size and pace), or it is due to players looking after themselves, it's still a very important and undervalued aspect in football.

-Here's a list of numbers of PL games missed due to injury since 17/18.

Aubameyang: 0
Salah: 1
Vardy:2
Sterling:4
Mane: 6
Aguero:17
Kane:20

-Salah is one of those players, like Messi and Ronaldo, who rarely gets injured, meaning he's always available to perform consistently.

-So after looking at all of this, seeing he is one of the most clinical and prolific scorers, one of the most creative out of the bunch, a top dribbler, doesn't lack behind in any attacking metric, why is Mo Salah so criminally underrated?

- Is it because of the incidents of diving, which is prevalent in the modern game, and if you watched Mo every week, you would see just how much he tries to stay on his feet, despite blatant fouls.

- Yet people will ignore that, and let myths get in the way of their judgment.

-The myths of him being 'greedy' or 'wasteful' are simply incorrect and can be proved wrong with facts.

-Mo salah, THE best attacker in the league.

- All data from Opta powered websites:
http://transfermarkt.com 
http://whoscored.com 
http://understat.com 

Like and RT!!!

Got the idea to make the thread from @lewinh0_