Stat, Viz, Quiz is the Opta Analyst football newsletter. This week’s edition looks at European success, Mohamed Salah, and being on the beach.
What can you say about Mohamed Salah that hasn’t already been said?
Hopefully there’s something else to be said, because we intend to talk about him again in this week’s newsletter.
Liverpool’s star man – fresh off signing a new deal at Anfield – claimed his 45th goal involvement of the Premier League season in the Reds’ victory over West Ham on Sunday, breaking the 38-game record in the competition. We’ll look at how he got there and who he overtook.
England claimed an extra Champions League spot for next season after Arsenal’s impressive win over Real Madrid last week. We’ll see just how well each nation has done in European competition this season.
This week’s quiz tests your Premier League knowledge, and if you need a rest after it, our Ask Opta question takes us to the beach.
Time to SVQ!
STAT – Europe’s Best
It has been a positive season for Premier League teams in Europe so far.
Arsenal, Aston Villa, Tottenham, Manchester United and Chelsea all still being in with a shout of winning silverware across all three UEFA competitions is testament to the strength of the Premier League, especially considering Arsenal are the only one of those five teams currently in the top five of England’s top flight.
The reason top five is relevant is that each team in those places in the Premier League will qualify for next season’s Champions League after England’s coefficient reached the points needed to get them over the line last week with Arsenal’s impressive 3-0 win against Real Madrid. Even if the Spanish giants turn things around on Wednesday, that place for the Premier League is now secure.
How has each country done in Europe this season, though? (To note that the following does not include qualifying rounds)
Ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League quarter-final second legs, English teams have played 73 games in Europe this season, and have the best win percentage of any nation (47 wins, 64.4%). There have been 13 draws and 13 losses in those matches, with Premier League sides the only ones to average more than two goals scored per game (2.23). They also average just 1.0 goal against. Of nations to have played at least 20 games in UEFA competitions this season, only Italy (also 1.0) have a defensive record as good.
Italian teams have actually played the most games in Europe this season, largely because they were one of two countries to get an extra UCL slot last season. Serie A clubs have won 41 of 81 games in Europe in 2024-25 (50.6%), with 18 draws and 22 defeats, averaging 1.63 goals scored.
Spain are second for win percentage, with 44 victories from 76 games (57.9%), and just seven draws and 25 losses. La Liga teams average 1.96 goals scored per game, and 1.26 goals conceded.
Perhaps surprisingly, Poland are third, though only 20 games have featured teams from the Polish Ekstraklasa, with Legia Warsaw and Jagiellonia Białystok still competing in the Conference League quarter-finals. Polish teams have 11 wins from 20 games (55%), with two draws and seven losses.
That is something to bear in mind with the figures in the table above, that countries like Poland, Norway and Greece have largely seen representative teams playing in the Europa League and Conference League play against a lower level of opposition than in the Champions League. This is not proof of which countries have been strongest, just an interesting look at which have at least done well relative to their opportunities to do so.
It hasn’t been a great season for Bundesliga teams, with 37 wins from 79 games (46.8%), along with 11 draws and 31 defeats. Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Eintracht Frankfurt will all be looking to win in their respective competitions this week in order to keep German interests alive.
Finally, despite Paris Saint-Germain’s heroics in the Champions League, French teams have the lowest win percentage of Europe’s top five leagues. Ligue 1 sides have won just 27 of their 62 collective games (43.5%), with 13 draws and 22 defeats.
And yet, PSG and Lyon could still end the season with two of the three major European trophies, so who knows which countries will ultimately end up with the bragging rights?
VIZ – Mo Salah: Involvement King
‘More in than out’. That was how Liverpool announced Mohamed Salah’s contract extension on Friday, playing on the Egyptian’s “more out than in” quote about his future last November.
‘More in than out’ could also describe the ball when it comes to Salah this season, with the 32-year-old responsible for a significant number of times the Reds have scored in 2024-25.
Salah has 55 goal involvements in 46 games for Liverpool in all competitions this season, having played a part in almost 50% of his team’s 111 goals.
His contribution to the Reds’ Premier League title charge has been even more significant, though.
Salah’s assist for Luis Díaz’s opener in Sunday’s 2-1 win against West Ham at Anfield was his 45th goal involvement of the season in the league (27 goals, 18 assists), breaking the record for most goals and assists combined in a 38-game campaign in the Premier League.
That means the former Chelsea and Roma winger has had a hand in 60.8% of Liverpool’s 74 league goals this season. It’s probably a good job they’ve got him for another two years, then.
As for his 45 goal involvements, Salah has overtaken the previous record held jointly by Thierry Henry (2002-03) and Erling Haaland (2022-23), who managed 44 apiece. Salah now sits outright at the top of that list, but he still has two more players to chase down for the overall record.
Andrew Cole (1993-94) and Alan Shearer (1994-95) both managed 47 goal involvements in a single Premier League campaign, though both occurred when England’s top flight was made up of 22 teams, so each team played 42 games instead of the 38 they do today.
Salah still has six games to get the three goal involvements necessary to break that record. He will be optimistic about doing so, though will also presumably be eager to end what has been a bit of a goal drought for him. For the first time this season, Salah has now gone three games in a row in the Premier League without scoring, and he hasn’t scored a non-penalty goal in his last five outings in the league since his strike in February’s 2-0 win at Manchester City.
Want to read more about Salah? Head to the Opta Analyst site where we went through all his best data following news of his two-year contract extension.
QUIZ – Fallen Forest, Careless Ipswich, and Leaky United
This week, we look to some of the best Opta facts and stats from the Premier League to test your mightiest brain cells. Answers at the bottom of the page.
1. Abdoulaye Doucoure’s late winner for Everton was the first home goal Nottingham Forest had conceded in the Premier League since January. The Tricky Trees had gone 449 minutes without conceding at the City Ground. Who was the last visiting player to score there prior to Doucoure?
2. Jørgen Strand Larsen became just the second player to score in four consecutive Premier League appearances for Wolves, after who in March/April 2004 (a run of five)?
3. West Ham suffered their 22nd Premier League defeat against Liverpool at Anfield (P29 W1 D6 L22). Who is the only visiting team to have lost there more often in the competition?
4. Ipswich Town have lost more points from winning positions than any other team in the Premier League this season. How many? A) 23, B) 27, C) 31
5. Since Ruben Amorim’s first game in charge on Manchester United, who are the three Premier League teams to have conceded more than their 48 goals?
Ask Opta
This week’s question comes from Nick Jones, who asks: “Who is winning what I like to call the ‘Race to the Beach’, to steal a phrase from late season football parlance? By which I mean which teams are closest to being mathematically unable to reach up to the promotion/play-off spots, but also safe from the relegation spots, in their respective league? Excluding the Premier League, for which you could argue this is true for 16 teams.”
Do you have a stats-based football question you want to Ask Opta? If so, send it to editors@theanalyst.com and we’ll do our best to provide you with the answer in a future edition of SVQ.
Answer:
Ah, the race to the beach. With only a few weeks left of the season, we can already hear the suntan lotion, the windbreakers and the buckets and spades being packed across the English Football League.
Out of interest, ignoring the fact that there’s still a very competitive race for the European spots, yes, the Premier League doesn’t have much else to play for. Liverpool and Arsenal are the only two teams who can win the title, which the Reds could clinch as early as next weekend.
Technically, any one of Everton, Manchester United, Tottenham, Wolves and West Ham could still get relegated, though there is a 14-point gap from 17th-place West Ham to 18th-place Ipswich Town, so it seems somewhat unlikely any will get dragged in.
There are no beach dwellers yet in the Championship, Queens Park Rangers in 15th are the highest-placed team who can no longer reach the play-offs, but anyone from 13th-place Norwich City down could still get relegated.
We do have an official winner of the race to the beach in League One, though. Lincoln City in 12th place can now officially no longer reach the play-offs or get relegated, so the Imps will be in the third tier again next season. Barnsley (11th) and Rotherham United (13th) are very close to joining them.
In League Two, both Cheltenham Town (16th) and Gillingham (17th) can pack their bags and head for the sand. They are also too far away from the play-offs but well clear of the relegation zone.
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1. Abdoulaye Doucoure’s late winner for Everton was the first home goal Nottingham Forest had conceded in the Premier League since January. The Tricky Trees had gone 449 minutes without conceding at the City Ground. Who was the last visiting player to score there prior to Doucoure?
Paul Onuachu
2. Jørgen Strand Larsen became just the second player to score in four consecutive Premier League appearances for Wolves, after who in March/April 2004 (a run of five)?
Henri Camara
3. West Ham suffered their 22nd Premier League defeat against Liverpool at Anfield (P29 W1 D6 L22). Who is the only visiting team to have lost there more often in the competition?
Newcastle (24)
4. Ipswich Town have lost more points from winning positions than any other team in the Premier League this season. How many? A) 23, B) 27, C) 31
B) 27
5. Since Ruben Amorim’s first game in charge on Manchester United, who are the three Premier League teams to have conceded more than their 48 goals?
Southampton (59), Tottenham (53) and Leicester City (53)
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Stat, Viz, Quiz: Mo Salah, the Goal Involvement King Opta Analyst.
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