Nine opening weekends, ten goals, one blank
Nobody has done this since 1992. Mohamed Salah scored 10 goals on Premier League opening weekends across nine appearances, the most recent at home to Bournemouth to start 2025-26.
He drew a blank exactly once. Stamford Bridge, 13 August 2023, a 1-1 draw. He still set up Liverpool’s goal that afternoon.
His hat-trick against Leeds United to open 2020-21 sits in rare company: only ten hat-tricks have been scored on a Premier League opening day in 34 seasons.
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Vardy played the same nine openers and finished two short
The chasing pack is crowded near the top and still nowhere near it. Jamie Vardy, Alan Shearer, Wayne Rooney and Frank Lampard share second place on eight. Vardy featured in nine opening weekends, the same as Salah, and came up two goals shy. Sergio Agüero and Teddy Sheringham have seven. Didier Drogba and Louis Saha have six.
Of the players still in the league, only Erling Haaland and Callum Wilson have got to five.
Add assists and the gap widens. Salah has 15 direct goal involvements from nine opening-day matches, 10 goals and five assists. Rooney has 13. Sheringham and Lampard have 10, Vardy and Shearer nine. Paul Pogba slips into the top 10 the other way round, with two goals and six assists.
Haaland needs six more Augusts
The tally is frozen now. Salah left England for Trabzonspor this summer, so 10 goals and 15 involvements is where it stops. Haaland is the only plausible challenger, and he would have to deliver on six more opening weekends to draw level.
Was Salah unusually sharp in August, or simply never absent? Nine opening-day appearances from nine possible since 2017-18 says more about availability than about seasonal form.
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