Who is Liverpool’s most important player and why is it Mohamed Salah? There are other players who can certainly make a case. Alisson Becker prevented a poor season in 2022/23 from being a truly abysmal one, for instance.
But when the Egyptian is the club’s top scorer and (joint) top assist provider in 2023/24, it’s hard to look past him. Salah has led the Reds’ goal chart in every season he has been with the club and he has the most assists in the Jürgen Klopp era too. Whenever the sad day comes that he leaves, he will be near-impossible to replace.
The focus of the story was Bruno Fernandes and the high proportion of Manchester United’s expected goals assisted for which he is responsible. “Fernandes’ key passes have totaled 3.8 xG assisted, or 25.6 per cent of United’s overall np[non-penalty]-xG figure; the next closest to him in terms of proportion is Marcus Rashford on 8.5 per cent,” was the key point to take away from Opta’s study.
The article also included a searchable table, allowing you to check any player or club. Salah is second in the standings, having created 21.0 per cent of Liverpool’s non-penalty expected goals (npxG). However, unlike United, the Reds also have Dominik Szoboszlai in the top eight, with 16.0 per cent to his name. It’s obviously not entirely coincidental that Klopp’s top two outfield players for minutes played are the leading pair for proportion of creativity, though that will obviously influence the figures at all the other clubs too.
Trent Alexander-Arnold is next in line for Liverpool, in the spot directly below Rashford. While this relatively low standing continues to ask questions about the right-back’s poor creative output by his sky-high standards in 2023/24, it raises an interesting question. How many players have contributed to at least 10 per cent of their team’s non-penalty xG or expected assists this season?
With our 10 per cent benchmark, all five senior forwards at Liverpool make the cut on the expected goal side, from Cody Gakpo at 11.4 up to Darwin Núñez on 21.8. On this data (as the article didn’t include xG), both Szoboszlai and Alexander-Arnold qualify, giving the Reds a total of seven players who have contributed to at least a tenth of the npxG or xA.
Only West Ham, with eight, have more this season. Indeed, Jarrod Bowen has been occasionally mooted as a potential Salah replacement of the future and is in the elite group of players with at least 15 per cent for both metrics, along with the Reds’ number 11.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham all have five ’10 per centers’, Newcastle four and United just three. Its reliance upon Fernandes highlights that Liverpool possesses the most balanced team and squad among the Premier League’s top teams. Salah still leads the way, but it is a bonus that so many others are also helping him out. That can only enhance its chances of success this season.
