The Week in Stats: Mohamed Salah was not as clinical as you think

Salah, Spurs and Atletico Madrid all garnered plenty of column inches over the weekend. Here we see if the numbers behind the headlines add up.

Salah had a slow start last year as well

Words to the effect that “Salah would have scored that last season” were used time and again during coverage of Liverpool’s win over Spurs. Yes, that miss — which you can watch below — halfway through the first half was very poor indeed, although not as remarkable as the one from Salah at Leicester a week earlier. But the underlying numbers show he was doing exactly the same thing this time last season.

This can be seen most clearly by looking at Salah’s xG-to-goals ratios for these periods, which indicate how well or badly he’s been converting his opportunities, and at the numbers of Big Chances that he’s missed. In layman’s terms, Big Chances are ones that most people reading this article would have good odds of putting away.

The table and shot maps above show us that (i) Salah is taking, and missing, his shots from more central areas than last season; (ii) he’s being even more profligate in the present campaign; (iii) this current re-imagining of the Salah of 2017-18 as a consistently clinical finisher is a work of fiction. It should also be noted that he went on to miss Big Chances in the next two league games last season, against Leicester and Newcastle.

Salah ended the 2017-18 campaign with 32 league goals from an xG of 25.14, which means that he eventually over-achieved by 6.86 goals. But people shouldn’t forget that it took him quite a while to warm up then as well.

An accompanying narrative, namely that Sadio Mane has picked up the slack from Salah and taken his game to a new level this season, also seems to be based on perception rather than reality. We can see below that Mane has over-achieved in terms of expected goals during the early stages of every campaign since joining Liverpool. Like Salah, he’s just doing what he usually does.

Tottenham really were dreadful

Spurs have enjoyed many more good days than bad since Mauricio Pochettino’s appointment in the summer of 2014, but this was one of the very worst he’s had in the Premier League — home or away.

In the 157 league games that the Argentinian coach has overseen at Tottenham, on only three occasions have the opposition outclassed his side in xG terms as convincingly as Liverpool did here. Liverpool were responsible for one of those instances back in 2015, while the other two were at the hands of Manchester City last season.

In addition, only twice under Pochettino had Spurs ever allowed an away side to create better chances.

If these numbers are a product of their opponents at the weekend being extraordinarily good, much like Manchester City were last season, then Spurs fans perhaps shouldn’t be hugely concerned. After all, Liverpool were outplayed in the corresponding fixture last year, and it didn’t do their campaign any harm in the long run.

The real worry for Spurs supporters is that with Liverpool’s decision-making in the final third having been so poor during the game, these depressing numbers could easily have been far worse. And that could prove to be a sign of longer-term troubles for Tottenham.

Dmitrovic vs. Atletico Madrid

The performance of Eibar’s Serbian goalkeeper Marko Dmitrovic against Atletico Madrid was something to behold. Indeed, for the save seen below he seemed to be channeling 1970 Gordon Banks.

But while Dmitrovic’s heroics and Atleti’s lack of fortune received a lot of attention, the game wasn’t quite as remarkable as some believed.

For instance, the incredible stop shown above isn’t close to being the most extraordinary in statistical terms in La Liga this season. That honor belongs to David Soria of Getafe for this point-blank save against Real Valladolid.

Dmitrovic’s performance also wasn’t quite the best from a goalkeeper in the Spanish top flight so far, although it did come very close. Fernando Pacheco of Alaves and SD Huesca’s Axel Werner both kept out more in xG terms against Barcelona, although they still ended up losing 3-0 and 8-2 respectively.

Finally, this wasn’t even the most one-sided draw in Europe over the weekend, or in Spain this month. The former was the Cagliari vs. AC Milan game, and the latter was the extraordinary Valencia derby in which Levante somehow salvaged a point.

Data taken from WhoScored and Understat.