Typically, at age 32, players tend to see a decline in their performance as they begin to wind down their careers. However, Mohamed Salah is rewriting the script.
During Liverpool's 5-0 win against West Ham, the Egyptian scored a goal and two assists to take his Premier League goal contribution to 30 before January.
It is a simply astonishing achievement for the Reds winger, who is being linked with a possible summer exit amid an ongoing contract dispute with the club.
However, it now seems ridiculous for Liverpool to allow Salah to leave for free, given how impressive their 2024-25 campaign has been to date.
In fact, the Egyptian has been so good that he has broken the record for the best minute-to-goal contribution ratio of any Premier League player in history.
With 17 goals and 13 assists in 18 games (1,586 minutes), Salah has an astonishing record of a contribution every 53 minutes this season.
Mohamed Salah has reached 30 goals in the Premier League before the new year
The Egyptian scored his 17th goal of the campaign during the 5-0 win over West Ham on Sunday.
In terms of the current season, Salah is alone at the top of the rankings for goal contributions, followed by Chelsea's Cole Palmer in second with 18.
If we take a look at the all-time records, Salah's impressive comeback is the best of all time for players who have played more than 1,000 minutes in a league season.
According to The Athletic, following Salah is Arsenal star Gabriel Jesus, who, during his time at Manchester City, impressively contributed a goal every 59 minutes in 2016-17.
However, the statistic is a little less striking when you take into account that Jesus contributed only 11 goals, albeit in 10 appearances, compared to Salah's 30.
Similarly, third on the all-time list is former Everton striker Kevin Campbell, who provided nine goals and two assists in eight Premier League games in 1998-99.
Moving up to fourth on the all-time list, we finally have another current player: Man City superstar Erling Haaland and his record-breaking debut year at the club.
After joining City in the summer of 2022, the Norwegian broke the goalscoring record by producing a monumental return of 36 goals, along with eight assists.
However, even in his record-breaking campaign a goal was recorded every 63.1 minutes, ten minutes less than Salah so far.
Erling Haaland broke the scoring record after a monumental comeback of 36 goals in his debut season
Meanwhile, Gabriel Jesus produced an impressive goalscoring comeback in his time at City.
Even Harry Kane, second on the all-time scoring chart, cannot compete with Salah's results.
Former Man United star Ole Gunnar Solskjaer moves up the list in fifth place after contributing 12 goals and one assist for the Red Devils in the 1998-99 season.
Meanwhile, former Manchester City star Sergio Aguero completes the top six after his impressive 2013-14 campaign, which saw him score 17 goals and six assists.
Elsewhere on the list are the likes of Luis Suarez and Harry Kane, who have also lit up the Premier League in past seasons.
Uruguayan star Suárez made a particularly impressive comeback during the 2013-14 season, where he scored 31 and provided another 13 assists.
Meanwhile, Kane's 2016-17 campaign, in which he scored 29 goals and recorded seven assists, also made the list.
However, with goal contributions every 68.9 minutes and 70.3 minutes respectively, neither of them come close to challenging Salah.
In fact, the Egyptian's numbers became even more impressive after it was revealed that he participated in the fewest games in his history to reach 30 goals.
The Liverpool star managed to do it in just 18 games, one better than Suarez, four better than Haaland and a staggering seven better than Alan Shearer in 1994-95.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored 12 goals and one assist for Man United in the 1998-99 season.
In third place on the all-time list is former Everton striker Kevin Campbell.
Uruguayan star Suárez made a particularly impressive comeback during the 2013-14 season, where he scored 31 and provided another 13 assists.
| Player | Season | Minutes | GEORGIA | Minutes per G/A |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mohamed Salah | 2024-25 | 1582 | 30 | 52.7 |
| Gabriel Jesus | 2016-17 | 650 | 11 | 59.1 |
| Kevin Campbell | 1998-99 | 692 | 11 | 62.9 |
| Erling Haaland | 2022-23 | 2776 | 44 | 63.1 |
| Ole Gunnar Solskjaer | 1998-99 | 853 | 13 | 65.6 |
| Sergio Aguero | 2013-14 | 1539 | 23 | 66.9 |
Following their 5-0 win over West Ham, Liverpool manager Arne Slot took a moment to praise the “extraordinary” winger.
Slot said: “Mo and the word extraordinary is something I've heard a lot in the last six months – he really deserves it.”
“We know what a player he is and we know what he is capable of doing. But apart from that, he works very hard for the team also when the other team has the ball and yes, we can only hope that he can continue to provide these performances.
“But I would like to add that if he scores, there is also a chance that he will score.” So there are also other players who bring him to these positions, but if you bring Mo to these positions, it is extraordinary. Definitely.'
It would be fair to say that Salah has never looked better and now has the chance to break even more records in the second half of the season after an extraordinary finish to 2024.