Stat, Viz, Quiz 126: Mo Salah Signs Off with History as AFCON Beckons

We also weighed in on the debate, with many questioning whether the Egyptian would even play for Liverpool again following his astonishing comments after the 3-3 draw at Leeds United.

Then on Saturday, he came off the bench to a hero’s welcome at Anfield before assisting his team’s second goal in a 2-0 win over Brighton, not only helping them to victory but making yet another piece of history himself before he departed for the Africa Cup of Nations. In this week’s SVQ we’ll provide more detail on what that was.

We also have our weekly quiz, which includes a link to an even bigger quiz (a bit like quiz inception), and an Ask Opta question about uneventful games.

We’ll begin with a look ahead to AFCON, though. The tournament gets under way in Morocco next weekend, and as we always do for big tournaments, we’ve fired up the Opta supercomputer…

We have had to get used to winter AFCONs in recent years, but this one has an added twist. With Africa’s biggest tournament getting under way earlier, Premier League teams have seen their players disappear for international duty in mid-December, just before the hectic Christmas period.

Spending winter in the warm climes of Morocco sounds pretty good to us, though, and we’re certainly looking forward to seeing which teams step up over the next month.

Côte d’Ivoire won the 2023 tournament, beating Nigeria 2-1 in the final. It made the Elephants the first host nation to win the AFCON since Egypt in 2006. With Morocco hosting this time, there is a very good chance we could see it happen again.

Walid Regragui’s Atlas Lions impressed on their way to the 2022 World Cup semi-finals, and though they were surprisingly beaten by South Africa in the last 16 of the most recent AFCON, they are fancied to do well this time.

And the Opta supercomputer concurs, making Morocco favourites to win the whole thing. They do so in 19.1% of the supercomputer’s pre-tournament simulations.

Regragui’s men will open proceedings with their first group game against Comoros on Sunday.

It’s pretty close after that as far as other teams’ chances go. Egypt are narrowly second favourites (12.4%), and they’ll be hoping to get a fired up version of Mohamed Salah after his recent public disagreement at club level, while they will also have a relatively fresh Omar Marmoush.

Senegal (12.3%) are also expected to do well, with the Lions of Téranga boasting an in-form wing pairing of Ismaïla Sarr and Iliman Ndiaye.

Algeria haven’t performed well at all at the AFCON since winning it in 2019, suffering back-to-back group-stage exits in 2021 and 2023. They are fourth favourites here, though (12%).

Holders Côte d’Ivoire are only seventh favourites to retain their title (6.7%), while the supercomputer believes the least likely team to win the whole thing are Botswana (0.2%).

You can read all about the supercomputer’s AFCON predictions in more detail here.

You can also follow the tournament on the Opta Analyst site, where we’ll also have more preview content later this week, so stay tuned.

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Just a week ago, we were finding out that Mohamed Salah would not be a part of Liverpool’s squad for their Champions League game at Inter, while the player posted an uncaptioned photo of himself training alone back in Kirkby. It appeared the end of the road at the club was nearing for Salah.

Reds boss Arne Slot made clear his displeasure at the player’s fiery post-match comments a few days earlier after the draw at Leeds, where the 33-year-old accused his club of throwing him “under the bus” for their poor form, while he also claimed his relationship with Slot was now non-existent.

Following talks on Friday, Salah was back on the bench at least on Saturday, and as Joe Gomez was forced off with a hamstring issue early on against Brighton, Salah emerged to a huge ovation from the Anfield crowd. It doesn’t necessarily mean bridges have been fully mended, but the seeming burning of them was at least partly extinguished just before Salah departed for the AFCON.

It helped that Liverpool continued their mini revival from what was undeniably a crisis as they followed up a 1-0 win at Inter in midweek with a 2-0 victory over the Seagulls, and somewhat inevitably, Salah played a part in Saturday’s success.

His corner in the 60th minute found the unmarked head of Hugo Ekitiké (who we’ll be covering on Opta Analyst soon) to double Liverpool’s advantage. Not only was it the first Premier League goal the Reds had scored from a corner this season – the last team to do so – but it was also a landmark moment for Salah.

It was his 89th Premier League assist for Liverpool, and his 277th overall goal involvement. That took Salah one ahead of Wayne Rooney (276 for Manchester United) to give him the most goal involvements in Premier League history for a single club.

That is quite an achievement in eight-and-a-half seasons on Merseyside, and while there remain question marks as to how much longer he will be a Liverpool player, there is surely no question that Salah will go down as not just a bona fide legend at Anfield, but in the Premier League.

How many more goal involvements will he get for the reigning champions? As things stand, seeing how many more game involvements he has for them is probably the more pertinent question.

These five questions about the weekend’s Premier League action need to be solved, ideally by you. Answers at the bottom.

1. Hugo Ekitiké’s early strike for Liverpool in their win over Brighton was the Reds’ first goal in the opening minute of a Premier League game since which midfielder netted their fastest ever goal in the competition after 15 seconds vs Huddersfield in April 2019?

2. Oliver Sonne became the first South American player to score a Premier League goal for Burnley in their 3-2 defeat to Fulham on Saturday, and just the fifth Peruvian to net for any side in the competition. Name at least two of the other four.

3. In Nottingham Forest’s 3-0 win over Tottenham, Ibrahim Sangaré became the first player to score and provide 2+ assists in a Premier League game for Forest since which former England international did so vs QPR in May 1996?

4. Manchester City’s Phil Foden has scored eight league goals from outside the box since the beginning of the 2023-24 season. Who is the only player to have scored more across Europe’s big five leagues in that time?

5. Which team that dropped points this weekend have dropped more points from winning positions than anyone else in the Premier League this season?

If you want an even greater challenge, you can take this year’s Opta Analyst Football Quiz, made up of 10 rounds and with a total of 100 questions.

Our question this week comes from Sven, who asks: “What is the game with the fewest shots and the lowest xG? Sunderland vs Newcastle might be on the list.”

Do you have a stat-based question you’d like Opta to answer in a future edition of SVQ? Email us at [email protected] or message us on X @OptaAnalyst with #AskOpta and we’ll pick the best one.

Answer:

Sunderland’s 1-0 win over Newcastle United on Sunday is indeed on the list, Sven. In fact, as far as this season goes, it is the Premier League game with the fewest total shots (11) and the lowest combined xG (0.54). Of course, the fact the only goal of the game was a Nick Woltemade own goal contributed to this, as own goals do not carry an xG value.

Those 11 shots were the fewest in a single game in the competition since Aston Villa vs Crystal Palace in March 2023.

The second-fewest shots/second-lowest xG in a Premier League game this season also involved Newcastle; their 0-0 draw at Bournemouth in September featured just 15 shots and a combined xG of 0.6.

Looking further back, the Premier League game with the fewest shots on record (since 2003-04) also featured Bournemouth. There were only five shots attempted in total in the Cherries’ 1-0 home defeat to Burnley in December 2019, with a combined xG of just 0.3. Jay Rodriguez’s late winner for the Clarets was the only shot on target in the game.

Our Opta data hubs have detailed team and player stats, predictions, expected league tables and much more. Click/tap below to start your own data investigations.

Here's some of the latest data-driven offerings you can find on our website:

1. Hugo Ekitiké’s early strike for Liverpool in their win over Brighton was the Reds’ first goal in the opening minute of a Premier League game since which midfielder netted their fastest ever goal in the competition after 15 seconds vs Huddersfield in April 2019?

Naby Keïta

2. Oliver Sonne became the first South American player to score a Premier League goal for Burnley in their 3-2 defeat to Fulham on Saturday, and just the fifth Peruvian to net for any side in the competition. Name at least two of the other four.

Nolberto Solano (49), Herlyn Zuniga (3), Claudio Pizarro (2) and André Carrillo (1)

3. In Nottingham Forest’s 3-0 win over Tottenham, Ibrahim Sangaré became the first player to score and provide 2+ assists in a Premier League game for Forest since which former England international did so vs QPR in May 1996?

Steve Stone

4. Manchester City’s Phil Foden has scored eight league goals from outside the box since the beginning of the 2023-24 season. Who is the only player to have scored more across Europe’s big five leagues in that time?

Kylian Mbappé (14)

5. Which team that dropped points this weekend have dropped more points from winning positions than anyone else in the Premier League this season?

Brentford (13)

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Opta Analyst