One goal in last six - How much is Salah to blame for Liverpool's dreadful end to the season?

Liverpool’s season continues to descend into chaos, following a disappointing 2-2 draw against West Ham on Saturday that all but confirmed that Jürgen Klopp’s side are now out of the Premier League title race. As if that wasn’t troubling enough for fans of the Anfield club, a fresh row seems to be brewing between the aforementioned German manager and star striker Mohamed Salah.  After being dropped ahead of the match, the Egyptian international came on with just 11 minutes left to play and offered very little in an attacking sense. When asked about his demotion to the Liverpool bench after the game, Salah told reporters “If I speak, there will be fire” before walking on to the team bus. 

The comment has sparked a wave of speculation over the forward’s future at Anfield, with reports in England already rushing to downplay any prospect of Salah leaving the club in the summer. However, while the 31-year-old talent’s future may not be up for debate, his contributions in the here and now certainly remain at the heart of any discussion over Liverpool’s struggles this season. So how much blame should Salah be asked to shoulder for another league campaign that has seen Klopp’s side stumble in the final weeks? 

How reliant have Liverpool been on Salah this season?

With 17 goals and a further nine assists to his name in the league this season, there’s little doubt that Salah has been Liverpool’s most productive forward in front of goal. Not only does he have seven more goal contributions than the next most productive forward in Klopp’s side (Darwin Núñez with 19 goals and assists) but that also means that Salah has either scored or created no less than 33.8% of Liverpool’s total league goals this season. That’s the seventh highest individual contribution from a single player in the league this season and notably higher than any Manchester City or Arsenal player for their respective sides. 

It’s stats like these that certainly depict a concerning situation in Klopp’s team, in which the club more or less rely on Salah to stick the ball in the back of the net to win points. This narrative has become more and more prevalent in discussion around the club’s dip in form since the turn of the year, which has coincided with Salah struggling to score goals. Over the course of the last 15 Premier League match days, the Egyptian forward has only scored in four games, while missing a further six through injury or international duty. But is Liverpool’s anticlimactic end to the season simply down to Salah’s lack of goals or is something else at play?

Intriguingly, when we compare Liverpool’s form with and without Salah in the side, we find that Klopp’s team have not only averaged more goals without the forward in the starting XI, but have also tended to win more points too. So far this season, Liverpool with Salah in the team have won 2.06 points and scored 2.07 goals per game, but have averaged an even more impressive 2.5 points and 2.83 goals per game without him. So rather than the club faltering because of the Egyptian forward’s absence, they’ve seemingly thrived when he hasn’t been in the team. Which may explain why Klopp dropped Salah ahead of Saturday’s league clash. 

However, this dip in club form with Salah in the team isn’t entirely down to his lack of goals. While the senior forward has struggled for goals lately, what’s perhaps proven to be just as disastrous for Klopp’s team is Salah’s lack of assists too. Although the 31 year old is primarily a goalscorer, he is also one of Liverpool’s most potent playmakers too. So far this season Salah is level with Núñez on 13 assists each in all competitions, but finished with five more assists than any other Liverpool player last season. 

Indeed, Klopp’s team only works when Salah is scoring and creating goals and that simply hasn’t been happening in the second half of the season. As we can see in the graph above, while the forward was averaging between 0.8 and 1.2 goal contributions per game in the first half of the season, that number dropped to just 0.3 from matchday 26 to 31 and currently stands at just 0.2 from his last five league appearances. Of course, much of that is due to Salah’s goal scoring dropping from a high of 1.2 per game to 0.3 or 0.2 per game, but more notably his assists per game have fallen from 0.8 at the start of the season to a flat zero over the last 10 league games.