Thread by @yonkersfpl

🗨️“Salah is a different level when he starts without Mane” was claimed by @ahopcroft13 today.

At first I thought that this phenomenon was surely caused by the bad level of the opposition in the games without Mane. So I took a deep-dive into the stats 🧐 [Thread]

First lets look at Salah’s returns starting alongside Mane (1st) vs Salah starting without Mane (2nd)

Starts – 27 v 6
Goals – 12 v 7
Assist – 6 v 4
G+A/start – 0.67 v 1.83

Salah noted almost 3 times higher output without Mane! 😮

Salah started 6 matches without Mane in 19\20 - scoring 7 out of his 19 total goals! It is noticeable however, how easy the opposition were in these games. All the teams being among the 9 worst defensive teams in the league (Referred to as “The Bramble” teams by @lateriser12)

It makes sense that Mane would be rested in the ‘easiest’ games, but could the level of opposition be the cause for this phenomenon, and the absence of Mane just be a coincidence? 🤔

For comparison I took a closer look at Salah(1st) and Manes(2nd) performance in all the 18 games played vs the 9 leakiest teams this season.

Starts – 15 v 11
Goals – 12 v 10
Assist – 5 v 6
G+A/start – 1.13 v 1.45

Now I went back and compared Salah’s stats against “The Bramble” teams with(1st) and without(2nd) Mane. Against the same “bad” teams Salah’s output was still almost 3 times greater without Mane!

Starts – 9 v 6
Goals – 5 v 7
Assist – 1 v 4
G+A/start – 0.67 v 1.83

0.67 return per start is the exact same ratio as Salah had in all games starting with Mane. The level of opposition doesn’t seem to matter at all when they play together.

But maybe Salah just got unlucky against the easier teams when Mane played? Lets look at the (xGI)

Salah outperforms his xGI both with (1st) and without (2nd) Mane. The over performance was bigger without Mane, but the stats are still clear, the xGI/start is more than double without Mane

Starts – 9 v 6
xGI – 4.5 v 7.2
xGI/start – 0.5 v 1.2

The data clearly shows that claiming that the level of opposition was the cause of Salah performing better without Mane was wrong. The sample size is very low (only 6 games), so I want to compare these results with the games from the 18\19 season some other time

To sum it up: Go for Salah against bad teams when Mane doesn’t play! 😉 Otherwise go for Mane. 😂

Also, for Mane owners it was a little worrying noticing that he didn’t play in 8 of the 18 easiest games. Not great for captaincy 🤷

Stats: FBref.com

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