Mohammed Salah has proven to be in a league of his own this Premier League campaign. He has been scoring all types of goals — the majority of which with his left foot but he has a fair share of goals with his right foot and his head as well. The Egyptian has scored long range efforts and tap ins and has the odd free kick to add to his arsenal of highlight reel worthy strikes.
Even with these incredible stats, would I personally make world cup bets for Salah to be named the top goal scorer in the FIFA World Cup in 2018? It would take brave gambler to bet on him winning the Golden Boot this year for many reasons; I will list a few of them below.
Firstly, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp plays a brand of football that suits Salah to a tee. His mantra is “all out attack”, with a high pressing game and an attitude that allows his team to go forward as often as possible!
Salah has fitted into the Reds system absolutely perfectly! He slots onto the right wing and can cut in with his left foot and take on defenders as many times as possible during the 90 minutes of play. Klopp does not rely on his wingers to track back into their half like Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho does and this could be one of the reasons why Salah did not perform at his peak under the guidance of the Portuguese tactician.
Salah loves having the license to attack and he delivers more times than not. His stats back that claim up with a whopping 32-goals league goala this season — enough for the Premier League Golden Boot and a new domestic record.
Another reason for Salah’s incredible goal return this season has been because of the quality of players playing along side him. To have the speed and skills of Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane along side you as a forward definitely does not hurt your chances of scoring goals.
Mo Salah has come up in leaps and bounds since arriving from AS Roma last summer and has proved that he is a match for any opponent — however it may be a bit tougher come the World Cup in Russia.
For Egypt, Salah will not be given the same freedom to attack as he does with Liverpool and he will also be starved of the ball in many games as Egypt are not the top dogs in this tournament and they will most likely only be attacking on the counter-attack.
The quality of the Egyptian team is not as high as the Reds and that will also be a detriment to the number of chances Salah gets to score. Egypt are in Group A with hosts Russia, Saudia Arabia and Uruguay and in my opinion it will take something special from them to get to the knock-out rounds. Russia will have the home ground advantage while Uruguay are a very quality side with the likes of Barcelona striker Luis Suarez and PSG man Edison Cavani leading their attack.
If I were to make a bet I would first check out World Cup Tips and see what the panel of experts think. If Egypt can’t get out of their group, Salah will be hard pressed to win the Golden Boot!
