If I had to sum up Mohamed Salah's performance for Liverpool this season in one sentence, it would be this: He has no contemporaries.
Through February, the Egyptian winger has scored 25 goals and assisted 17 more. That's 42 goals+assists. In the Premier League, the next-best mark comes from Newcastle's Alexander Isak, who has 19 goals and six assists. It's a reverse Wayne Gretzky situation: Salah would still have more goals and assists than Isak if he hadn't registered a single assist this season.
If we expand it beyond the Premier League and to Europe's "Big Five" top leagues, Bayern Munich's Harry Kane gets the closest, with 21 goals and seven assists. The gap between Salah and Kane (14 goals+assists) is the same as the gap between Kane and Osasuna's Ante Budimir, who is tied with eight other players for the 38th-most goals+assists so far this season.
Any more analysis against anyone else from this season, and we're wasting our time. Salah could sit out the rest of the season, and he'd still win Premier League Player of the Year. The gap between him and whoever is No. 2 in the world right now is bigger than it's been since sometime before Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were trading back Ballons d'Or.
Liverpool still have to win a few more games to wrap up the Premier League, and they have a tough path to another Champions League trophy, starting with Paris Saint-Germain this week. But as individual achievements go, Salah is no longer competing with anyone who is playing in either of those competitions. To stake his claim among the best, he competing against seasons that have already happened; he's competing against history.
So, how does Salah's season compare with the greatest individual seasons we've ever seen? Let's take a look.
All stats referenced are for domestic play only.
