His biggest rival is probably Manchester City’s Erling Haaland, the man who broke Salah’s single-season goal record in his debut campaign last year by scoring 36 times to fire Manchester City to the title. Ominously, he’s currently on pace to bag even more this term after netting 11 in as many matches. A truly robotic finisher, Haaland is more likely regarded as a supervillain by many of the teams he faces.
Before we settle on our answer, it’s worth considering the criteria. What is it that captivates supporters most, both in the Premier League and across the game as a whole? The natural answer would be goalscoring chances. It follows that the ‘face of the league’ would be the player who’s most prominent in these situations. We can assess this numerically by looking at Opta’s ‘attacking contribution’ metric, which combines shots per 90 with chances created per 90. By this measure, neither Salah (third at 5.18) nor Haaland (down in ninth at 4.82) is the league’s main character. Instead, the honor goes to Reds striker Darwin Núñez.
At 6.54, Núñez is a long way clear of the pack. His nearest challenger is Man City’s summer signing Jérémy Doku, but the gap is 1.28, or 21.7 per cent.
Who is currently the face of the Premier League? Superstar Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah would no doubt argue that he deserves that title, having arguably been among the top three players in the competition for seven seasons now. In that period, he’s won the PFA Player of the Year award twice, and the Golden Boot three times.
