Mohamed Salah is A Man for All Seasons

Mohamed Salah has signed a new Liverpool contract while on a goal drought. It feels like he often hits a slump in the spring but does the data bear that out?

We all need a nudge from time to time.

The background of this website is littered with draft articles, by which I mean posts containing one line of an idea to come back to at some point. Here’s one from earlier this year.

Mohamed Salah frequently dominates the first halves of seasons before fading away after the new year. Or so it feels, with it having occurred often enough to warrant a deeper investigation. While he kept contributing in the immediate aftermath of the creation of that draft, the only output he has to show from his previous six Liverpool games is a pair of penalties against Southampton.

Listening to the latest Distance Covered podcast, I heard Josh Williams discuss with David Lynch the idea of Salah fading late in seasons before suggesting it’s the sort of thing I should look into. They know me so well.

With Salah’s contract extension being announced today, it’s also a good time to assess his record. Perhaps his campaign will be kickstarted by the matter of his future being resolved.

There is strong evidence of the Egyptian’s issues at this time of year in one of Opta’s pre-match stats for the Reds’ clash with West Ham (via Statszone):

Mohamed Salah hasn’t scored or assisted a goal in any of his last four games for Liverpool in all competitions, his longest run without a goal involvement for the club since March 2021 (also 4). Only in March 2019 has he ever gone five appearances without a goal or assist for the Reds.

Not a fan of March, Mo? As the trivia implies, it is not his strongest month for goal contributions, but research shows neither is it his weakest. Salah also has a clear leading quarter of the year, albeit the underlying data suggests his hot runs are somewhat random. We have the factor of Ramadan to consider too.