Who Are The Most Prolific EPL and Big 5 Attackers in Recent Times?

Photo Credit: Sky Spots

Watching Liverpool winger Mohammad Salah this year has been very entertaining. In the first half of his seventh season with Liverpool— all under the guidance of manager Jurgen Klopp— the 31-year-old Salah is tied for the EPL lead in goals scored with 14 and tied for the lead in assists with 8. His consistently productive performance has me wondering: Where does he rank among the most prolific EPL attackers in recent times?

In this analysis, I’ll rank the top attackers in both the EPL and the European Big 5 soccer leagues using non-penalty goals + assists per 90 minutes played, to see where Salah ranks among this generation’s greats.

From Figure 1 below, we see that Salah ranks third among EPL attackers, trailing only Thierry Henry and Sergio Aguero. Other active EPL players in this leaderboard include Manchester City’s Kevin DeBruyne, Arsenal’s Gabriel Jesus, and Tottenham’s Son Heung-Min.

Figure 1: Top 25 EPL attackers since 2000 (min 100 games played)

Expanding the analysis to Europe’s Big 5 soccer leagues, Lionel Messi is head and shoulders above the field with 1.3 npG + A / 90. Furthermore, Erling Haaland (who is poised to top the EPL leaderboard when he reaches 100 games played) and Kylian Mbappe are in the second elite tier followed by Neymar and Luis Suarez in the third tier. Cristiano Ronaldo, Robert Lewandowski, Zlatan Imbrahimovic, Henry, the Brazilian Ronaldo, and Gonzalo Higuain rank in the fourth tier.

Figure 2: Top 25 European Big 5 attackers since 2000 (min 100 games played)

Salah leads the fifth tier of Big 5 elite attackers as the 12th most prolific of our generation. Other active Big 5 players in this leaderboard include Haaland, Mbappe, Lewandowski, Harry Kane, Thomas Muller, and Jadon Sancho.