Opta names Salah in Premier League team of the season
Salah topped Opta’s data-led Premier League XI after a season Liverpool turned into a title and stats machine, with Sels and Alexander-Arnold among the sharpest calls.
Mohamed Salah was the headliner in Opta’s Premier League team of the season, a data-first XI that cut across reputation and reward to back the players who graded out best in their positions. Opta said it analysed every player’s performances and selected 11 names that outperformed every other option in the league by its model, placing Liverpool’s talisman at the center of a season it described as one of the best individual campaigns the competition has ever seen.
That judgment sat neatly alongside Liverpool’s broader return to the top. Arne Slot won the Premier League in his first season at Anfield, delivering Liverpool’s second Premier League title and 20th top-flight league crown overall. Arsenal finished second again, ahead of Manchester City, while Newcastle United and Chelsea took the other Champions League places, a table that underlined how much the season’s big prizes were spread across the elite.
The most striking analytics call came in goal. Opta picked Nottingham Forest’s Matz Sels, not one of the more decorated or marketable names, after a season built on volume and efficiency. Sels kept 13 clean sheets, level with Arsenal’s David Raya, made 120 saves, and ranked fourth for save percentage at 72.6 percent. Opta’s xGOT model said he prevented 4.3 more goals than the average goalkeeper would have been expected to stop based on the quality of shots he faced. Forest’s seventh-place finish gave that work even more weight, turning a shot-stopper into one of the clearest overachievers in the division.
The rest of the XI mixed title winners with players who forced their way in on numbers. Liverpool were represented by Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, Ryan Gravenberch and Salah, while Arsenal contributed William Saliba and Declan Rice. Manchester City’s Joško Gvardiol, Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo, Wolves’ Matheus Cunha and Newcastle’s Alexander Isak rounded out the side. For Alexander-Arnold, the selection carried an added edge: his final Liverpool appearance, at least for the foreseeable future, came in the 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace, with a move to Real Madrid looming.
That is the split Opta’s model rewards and traditional awards often miss. It does not just chase trophies or star power; it elevates repeatable performance, shot-stopping efficiency, positional output and season-long consistency. In a league where the title went to Liverpool and the headlines often followed goals, Opta’s XI argued that the most valuable seasons were sometimes being written by the numbers first.
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