Mohamed Salah is irreplaceable. Let's use data to replace him, anyway.
Can it be done? Let's find out!
GRACE ROBERTSON
23 JAN 2024
I donāt want to shock anyone here, but Liverpool and Egypt attacker Mohamed Salah is quite good at the football.
Weāre halfway through his seventh season at Anfield and heās still never had a campaign where youād say his performances fell below the standard of āone of the Premier Leagueās best attackersā. Since returning to Englandās top flight in 2017, heās scored 127 non-penalty goals, more than any other player. Harry Kane is in second place with 111, while no one else has more than 100. At the same time, heās contributed 66 assists and an all-round game thatās transformed this Liverpool side.
Heās 31 years old right now and, at a time when he might have lost a touch of pace, heās somehow adding even more to his game. Heās making more progressive passes per 90 than in any previous season without sacrificing his expected goals and assists at all. Heās been absolutely electric. His left-footedness brings so much balance to a Liverpool team otherwise dominated by righties. Perhaps most importantly, heās world-class at the greatest ability of all: availability. Yes, heās injured right now, infuriatingly forcing me to rewrite this intro. But thatās his first injury since November 2019 (not including testing positive for Covid). The man is pretty much always fit.
So heās always excellent, really important tactically, and never gets injured. Yeah, those players definitely grow on trees. But that shouldnāt deter us, should it? Letās start by seeing if we can find any straight statistical matches for what Salah can do.
Letās start by looking at Salahās worst output. His lowest non-penalty xG and xG assisted over a season was 0.43 and 0.18 in 2020/21. So weāre going to search for a player in the top five leagues in the past three seasons with at least those stats, having played at least ten 90s worth of minutes. And weāre only going to look at players born in 1997 or later, meaning the oldest among the sample would turn 27 this year. Letās see who Stathead spits out.
The simple search produced the following 23 names:
Victor Boniface
Matheus Cunha
Bamba Dieng
Artem Dovbyk
Breel Embolo
JoĆ£o FĆ©lix
Erling Haaland (three times)
Nicolas Jackson
Gabriel Jesus
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
Mohamed Bayo
Ademola Lookman
Donyell Malen
Lautaro MartĆnez
Kylian MbappƩ (three times)
Bryan Mbeumo
Terem Moffi
Christopher Nkunku (twice)
Darwin NĆŗƱez (twice)
LoĆÆs Openda
Rodrygo
Marcus Thuram
FerrƔn Torres
Darwin NĆŗƱez already plays for Liverpool, so heās not much use here. Then there are the four players already at Premier League Rich Seven clubs: Erling Haaland, Nicolas Jackson, Gabriel Jesus and Christopher Nkunku. Theyāre not going to Liverpool. Nor is Kylian MbappĆ©, whatever spurious internet rumours may tell you, or Rodrygo. Weāre down to 16 names.
As you might have noticed, quite a few players here are out-and-out strikers, who might be great, but theyāre not really what weāre looking for (Victor Boniface, Bamba Dieng, Artem Dovbyk, Mohamed Bayo, Lautaro MartĆnez, Terem Moffi and Marcus Thuram). Then we get to maybe the biggest problem: of the nine names left, eight are right-footed (Matheus Cunha, Breel Embolo, JoĆ£o FĆ©lix, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Ademola Lookman, Donyell Malen, LoĆÆs Openda and FerrĆ”n Torres). Salahās left-footedness is very important to Liverpoolās attack.
Which means we have just one name left. For a direct statistical replacement, the player Liverpool should sign if they sell Salah isā¦.
*drum roll*
BRYAN MBEUMO.
I can sense the Liverpool fans booing me from across the internet.
In all fairness, Mbeumo has been good for Brentford. Heās showing good signs of progress at age 24, fits the tactical role as a left-footed right winger bursting into space, and has two years left on his contract this summer. Heās had a few years of xG underperformance that, if you can be confident will not keep plaguing him, probably reduce his transfer fee a bit. Liverpool have done very well in the past signing players from Premier League clubs outside the elite, and Mbeumo would fit the model as another one of these. If you want a poor manās Salah, he might be ideal.
But is he the real thing? Of course not. Guys, youāre still trying to replace Salah. I told you we canāt do it, and we canāt do it. Now, what we might be able to do is recreate him. Recreate him in the aggregate.
I think we can break what Salah does for Liverpool into three core areas: goals, creativity, and left-footedness. Goals are obviously pretty straightforward to measure Heās scored 10 non-penalty strikes in the league this season from 9.4 xG. Over his entire time at Anfield, he averages out 0.57 non-penalty goals per 90, and heās on the pitch for about 34 league 90s, so weāre looking at 19 goals per season (yes, I know he takes the penalties as well, but someone else can do that). Thatās the number of goals we have to find.
Letās assume the player in question will be able to play about 80% of the available minutes. That means they need to be producing a little over 0.6 non-penalty goals per 90. Weāll use xG because itās more predictive. Weāre also not looking for out-and-out strikers. Again, they must have been born in 1997 or later, and weāre subtracting those Liverpool have no realistic chance of signing. Hereās who FBRef spits out either this season:
Arnaut Danjuma
Bamba Dieng
Ansu Fati
Moise Kean
Samu Omorodion
LoĆÆs Openda (twice)
Marcus Thuram (twice)
Iāve been a little more generous with the definition of āstrikerā this time. Someone like Thuram tends to play as a nine now, but heās been effective out wide in the past. Friend of the newsletter and very smart football knower Mohamed Mohamed has been banging the Thuram drum for over six years now, so that would be exciting. Openda has really looked the part for RB Leipzig as he did for Lens and would certainly be interesting, though likely not cheap. I donāt think the other players have shown the kind of consistency over several years that weāre looking for.
If Liverpool signed a right-footer to replace Salah, I think theyāre committing to starting Harvey Elliott as the right-sided central midfielder every week. His inclination to drift out wide as a left-footed playmaker would provide the balance that Salah automatically offers with his left foot. I like Elliott a lot, but I understand why you might not want to do that. And in terms of creativity, Liverpool are probably maxed out in terms of what theyāre getting elsewhere from Dominik Szoboszlai, Curtis Jones and Trent Alexander-Arnold. I think it would be very difficult to carry a forward who didnāt offer as much creativity as Salah without making the team worse.
As weāve established, Salah is doing more creative work than ever this season. I think thatās been a big part of Liverpoolās resurgence this season, and important in transitioning from a selfless false nine like Roberto Firmino to NĆŗƱez, a much more individualistic player, up top. Heās providing 5.13 progressive passes per 90 and 3.58 progressive carries. Letās loosen it up a touch and go for at least five passes and three carries. This time, letās only look for attackers who hit those stats, within the same age range as before, and weāll limit ourselves to left footers. Letās see what comes up.
Charles De Ketelaere
Harvey Elliott
Romain Faivre
NicolƔs GonzƔlez
Ilan Kebbal
IvĆ”n MartĆn
Michael Olise
Rodri (not that one, the one at Betis)
MatĆas SoulĆ©
Itās good news that Liverpool already have a player turning up in both searches. Between them, Elliott and NĆŗƱez could fill the things Salah does. Itās just a problem that he already does them in addition to what those players bring. Another interesting player was Cole Palmer. I removed him from the list because he has a contract running until the heat death of the universe, heās surely near the bottom of the list of players Chelsea might sell, and Liverpool are probably one of the clubs Todd Boehly et al would least like to sell to. But if anything were to change after such a disappointing season for the club, Iād seriously think about making an offer.
MatĆas SoulĆ© is certainly getting a lot of excitement right now. The aforementioned Mohamed Mohamed was pretty sold on his talent, though voiced some concerns about whether heād suit English football. SoulĆ© isnāt a hugely explosive player and would offer much more of a creative role to support others running into space. But his body isnāt finished maturing at age 20, and to do what heās already doing in Serie A at midtable Frosinone is really impressive, so he might be worth at least looking into. He is owned by Juventus, but who knows what their finances might mean in terms of keeping young players?
Michael Olise is a boring but logical choice. He can definitely handle the Premier League and has shown decent, if not elite, playmaking skills on an uninspiring Crystal Palace team. Weāre seeing him take on more attacking responsibility this season, with more shots, more xG and more goals, without a decline in his creativity. Itās a small sample size but, at 22 years old, he might be improving his game in important ways. Palace showed last summer that they didnāt need to sell when Chelsea started sniffing around, but will it make more sense this summer, if a bid comes in early? The clubās largest shareholder, John Textor, is exploring selling his 45% stake, and who knows how that uncertainty will affect transfer dealings?
If a player like Olise or SoulĆ© were to come in on the right, Liverpool would need to get more goals from elsewhere. Luis DĆaz hasnāt been sparkling over the past twelve months, so simultaneously upgrading at left wing could ease the burden. And should Liverpool be getting more goals from midfield? Dominik Szoboszlai has scored just twice in the league this season, with no other midfielder getting more than that. Szoboszlai is taking fewer shots from really dangerous locations at Anfield than he did at RB Leipzig, presumably because heās playing a slightly deeper role. Thereās an option to push him a bit further forward and make this team more of a 4-2-3-1 instead of a 4-3-3, which could again help spread the burden of losing Salah.
This is all really hypothetical. We donāt even know if Salah will be leaving or not, though I think itās certainly something Liverpool should be thinking about. We do know that there isnāt another Salah sitting around for the Reds to scoop up, and some more creative thinking is required to replace him. Whatever happens this summer, Liverpool will have to move on from him sooner or later. The important thing is to understand how to replace what the team does with him in the side, rather than simply replacing him. You canāt replace a player like Salah but, yes, you can recreate him in the aggregate.
https://www.graceonfootball.com/p/mohamed-salah-is-irreplaceable-lets
