Mohamed Salah would not have won the Premier League Golden Boot even if he had remained at Chelsea.
Following his impressive showing at Swiss top-flight side FC Basel, the Egyptian was signed by the Stamford Bridge giants in January 2014 for a fee reported to be in the region of £11 million.
Unfortunately, Salah was unable to break into the Blues first-team – prompting his moves to Fiorentina (on loan) and AS Roma.
His impressive showing for the Yellow and Reds in the 2016-17 campaign inspired his move to Liverpool in 2017.
Since his arrival at Anfield, the 29-year-old has been a shining light for the Reds, leading them to Premier League and Champions League triumphs.
Impressively, he walked home with the Premier League Golden Boot for the 2017–18 and 2018–19 seasons.
As a follow-up to Solace Chukwu’s ‘What if Salah had stayed at Chelsea?’, we asked our readers if the Pharaohs star would have been named as the English top-flight’s top scorer if he never left the London team.
In a poll conducted on the Goal Africa Twitter handle, a massive 68.2 per cent of total votes claim Salah would not have won the individual prize as a Chelsea player.
This opinion may not be out of place as the Blues have produced great strikers season in season out, plus the fact that no Chelsea player has won the Golden Boot since Didier Drogba’s feat in 2009–10.
On the contrary, 31.8 per cent are upbeat that the 2021 Ballon d'Or nominee would have achieved that feat at Stamford Bridge.
The Liverpool star is in the race to win the 2021-22 prize – leading the chart with 10 goals, while Leicester City’s Jamie Vardy occupies second spot with seven goals.
Despite overtaking Drogba to become the Premier League’s highest-scoring African in history, Yakubu Ayegbeni does not see the Egyptian as the greatest African to grace the English top-flight.
“You cannot say Salah is the greatest African to play in the Premier League. Drogba was something special because he was scoring for fun,” Ayegbeni told Goal.
“However, you have to give Salah the credit for breaking the big legend’s record, which makes him one of the greatest Africans in the English top-flight, but for now, he is certainly not the greatest.”
