Is Mo Salah Now In the Conversation as Liverpool’s Greatest Ever Player?

Here’s some bad news for fans of every football club other than Liverpool: Mo Salah is getting better with age.

Even after celebrating his 32nd birthday, Salah continues to reach new heights: as of November, he was the first player in Europe’s ‘big five’ leagues to record ten goals and ten assists in all competitions during the 2024/25 season.

The Egyptian has now scored more Premier League goals than the legendary Robbie Fowler, and by the end of the campaign he could have even climbed above Frank Lampard and Thierry Henry in the all-time EPL goalscorers list; the likes of Sergio Aguero and Andy Cole would then be in his crosshairs.

Not bad for a guy who, aside from a handful of appearances for Chelsea, didn’t make his Premier League debut until he had turned 25!

From his goals and assists to his growing trophy cabinet, Salah continues to ascend towards the ranks of Liverpool’s all-time greats.

But can he yet be considered the best player in the club’s history?

Goals Per Game

At the time of writing, Salah has scored 221 goals in 366 games for Liverpool in all competitions, which equates to a goal-per-game ratio of 0.60.

We can’t really compare the 32-year-old’s goal record to other Liverpool legends because his career hasn’t finished yet, but this goal-per-game measure offers a chance to compare him to the best in the business.

Ian Rush is, inarguably, the greatest goalscorer in Liverpool’s history. He struck for the Reds 346 times in 660 appearances… a goal-per-game ratio of 0.52.

Only one other player has scored 250+ goals for Liverpool: Roger Hunt. He notched 285 goals in 492 games in the famous red shirt, which is a ratio of 0.58.

Of Liverpool’s top ten goalscorers, only Gordon Hodgson – with a remarkable 241 goals in 377 appearances (0.63 per game) – can lay claim to bettering Salah’s ratio.

And, in the post-war era, nobody with 150+ goals gets close to the Egyptian.

Assists Per Game

Although an often an overlooked stat in football, you can actually compare player assists records for Liverpool FC dating all the way back to the early 1900s.

Kenny Dalglish has created more goals for Liverpool than any other player – around 150, in fact, depending on whose data you use. If we divide that 150 by King Kenny’s Reds appearances (515), we get an assist-per-game ratio of 0.29.

Salah, on the other hand, has 97 assists to his name at the time of writing. As a ratio of his 366 appearances, that’s a rate of 0.26… so he’d essentially on a par with one of the best ever in Dalglish, with the power to improve his rate even further.

Steven Gerrard has created more goals than any other player in the Reds’ history specifically in the Premier League – 92, all told. Salah, meanwhile, is up to 74… and counting.

The Power to Add

Of course, any debate about where Mo Salah sits in the pantheon of Liverpool Football Club comes with a caveat: he still has the power to add to his already outstanding legacy.

He may or may not sign a new contract at Anfield, we know that, but even so there’s still time to do more great things – which, the early going of the 2024/25 season suggests he’s more than capable of doing.

At the time of writing, Salah has scored and assisted in the same Premier League game 35 times; he’s now only one behind Wayne Rooney in that regard, and it seems incredibly likely he will leap clear on his own by the end of the season assuming he stays fit.

And remember earlier when we mentioned that he’d reached double figures for goals and assists before anybody else in Europe’s best leagues? It only took Salah 17 appearances to do so… making him the fastest to that mark in Liverpool’s entire top-flight history.

It means that he was, as of November, providing a goal or assist to Liverpool’s cause every 66 minutes of action. It puts Mo on a par with his incredible 2017/18 campaign, when he notched a remarkable 44 goals in all competitions and assisted 14 more.

So if you thought that Salah was past his best in the red shirt, forget about it. He’s as good, if not better, than he’s ever been… and that surely means that all manner of Premier League and Liverpool FC records will fall to the Egyptian.