Mohamed Salah’s two goals in Liverpool’s rout of Manchester United made him the club’s record Premier League goalscorer.
With 129 goals in the competition, Salah passed Robbie Fowler’s mark for the Reds and here the PA news agency looks at how the duo compare.
Overall record
Salah has scored his goals in fewer seasons and appearances than Fowler, also contributing more assists along the way.
Since arriving at the club from Roma in 2018 the Egyptian has played 205 times in the league, giving him a scoring rate of 0.63 goals per game. He has added 53 assists at a rate better than one every four games.
Fowler was at the club from the outset of the Premier League era in 1992, breaking into the line-up the following season. He stayed until 2002 before moving on to Leeds and then Manchester City, returning in 2006 for two more seasons.
He played 266 Premier League games for his boyhood club, scoring almost a goal every two games (0.48 per match), and set up 30 goals for others.
Seasons and achievements
Salah’s debut season at Anfield is still his best in the Premier League – and one of the greatest ever, with 32 goals scored.
That is a record since the league went down to 20 teams and therefore 38 games – Salah played 36 for Liverpool that year – with the only higher tally being 34 by both Alan Shearer and Andy Cole in the early 42-game seasons.
The tally brought him the first of three Golden Boots, with the subsequent two being shared with other players – team-mate Sadio Mane and Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in 2018-19 and Tottenham forward Son Heung-min last year, when he also led the league in assists with 13.
He has scored 20 goals in every completed season apart from 2019-20, when he came up one short in 19 in his lowest tally of appearances, 34. Sunday’s efforts took him to 11 in 25 games this term and, with seven assists, he is on track to reach double figures in that category for the fourth time in six seasons.
Fowler’s best seasons saw him score 25 goals in 1994-95, in 42 games, and then top that with 28 in a 38-game season next time out. He also hit double figures on three other occasions, with only his nine in an injury-hit 1997-98 campaign denying him six in a row.
He was the third player to score 100 Premier League goals, following Shearer and Ian Wright, with his 21 for City and 14 for Leeds leaving him eighth in the all-time Premier League rankings with 163 goals in total – where he is likely to remain until Salah can catch him, with Leicester veteran Jamie Vardy the only other active threat. Vardy has 134 with Salah’s two for Chelsea giving him 131.
