Salah as a Red Army
Liverpool (England)
The leading scorer in recent seasons has not only been the most prolific goal scorer in the lineup every season since joining the team, but even when looking at the whole
England Premier Soccer League
He can also be placed in the top ranks. However, even for such a top scorer, there are still some things that fans are not satisfied with, and one of the most common things that I have seen/heard is Salah's style of play is too much of a one-trick pony.
Therefore, as a Reds fan, I will analyze and discuss with you today, is Salah really eating alone as many fans say?
First, let's start by defining what soloing is in the context of a competitive team sport. A lone player is a player who puts his individual scoring or offensive stats ahead of the interests of the team. In other words, such a player will always prioritize scoring on his own when he is on the court, instead of working with his teammates to create better moments.
Does Salah fit this description? Let's look at a couple of stats and come to a conclusion. First of all, I think the first data that can be used to check whether an offensive player is a lone player or not is the player's passing-related data. This is the part where readers should be able to understand that a player who is a lone striker should have poorer passing related stats.
That is to say, if Salah is a solo player, the passing related stats should be average or even failing if he is always thinking about scoring on his own most of the time, so let's take a look at the first stats.
Passing Related Data I (per90):
Quiz on passing/completion of passes
(Success rate)
As you can see from the above data, Salah has outperformed his other three teammates in both the total number of passes made and the success rate of his passes among the top frontcourt rotation players this season. Of course, this may not be thorough enough - after all, it's possible that Salah is just making more insubstantial, over-preserved passes in exchange for his relatively high success rate. So we need to look at more advanced passing stats.
Passing Related Stats II (per90):
And if you look at the passes that actually help his teammates to create moments, Salah outperforms the rest of his teammates both in terms of number of key passes and in terms of PPA. salah is clearly trying to create moments for his teammates, and if most of the passes were meaningless, he wouldn't be outperforming one of the team's organizational contributors, Firmino, in those stats, would he? Right?
That's enough to show that Salah is still a long way from being a one-trick pony. Even if you look at the timing of shots and scores, Salah has created the most opportunities through athletic passing (41, with Robertson and Mane second and third, respectively).
Even if you look at the whole
England Premier Soccer League
, Salah's key pass attempts (total, non-per90) this season also ranked
England Premier Soccer League
Thirteenth place. I think, if it is a lone offensive player, in the premise of more emphasis on their own scoring, how can perhaps in the invention of opportunities for teammates in the data, better than the other teammates' performance? If this is a solo offense, then the other teammates are even more suspected of being solo offenders.
It's worth noting that Salah's shots per ninety minutes this season are actually at a new low since joining the team (even lower than Mane and Jota), so if Salah fits the definition of a lone goal scorer, how can he be declining in this shot category? (3.20 this season, compared to 4.07, 3.74, 4.33 in previous seasons).
These data are again and again revealed as a top scorer, Salah obviously in the maintenance of a scorer should have the desire to score at the same time, and did not ignore the cooperation with teammates, and even in assisting teammates to invent the offensive time, but also not the slightest trace of slack. So why does Salah give fans the image of being a one-trick pony?
