Mo Salah is not the only red -hot striker in the battle for the balloon d'Or who will play in the Parc des Princes on Wednesday for running away competition leaders.
The Egyptian superstar has yielded 30 goals this season – including 16 in 14 games since mid -December – to make Liverpool 11 points clear in the Premier League. But 2018 World Cup winner Ousmane Dembele has even better recent statistics.
The Pacey Paris Saint-Germain Forward has scored 25 goals in this campaign, but has scored a ridiculous 20 in the last 14 games in the same period, including back-to-back hat tricks. The French champions are clearly at the top of Ligue 1 and score more goals this season than with Kylian Mbappe in the last campaign.
And Dembele, who spent six unfulfilled years in Barcelona and was overshadowed by Mbappe last season, emerged as the radiant new star of the club. “You should ask him what he ate at Christmas,” Enrique said last month. “He is a player with confidence.
“When I played PlayStation as a child, he was the kind of player you would choose if you needed someone to change the game. He was already good last season, but in 2025 he will be even better.”
Barcelona paid an initial £ 96.5 million – in a deal of £ 135 million – to buy Dembele from Borussia Dortmund with part of the £ 199m PSG that was paid for Neymar in 2017. Now he finally realizes that price tag.
Former PSG and Liverpool -defender Mamadou Sakho added: “Dembele blows everything up. He has closed many people. I am not surprised because he is full of talent. Perhaps he has also passed a mental obstacle. “
And former midfielder of France, Rio Mavuba, claimed that he would like Dembele, 27, in his team for 32-year-old Salah. “Why? Because he takes a step up and he is younger. But even in Coaching, I still take Dembélé, because he manages to be decisive, even at important moments.”
The exit of Mbappe last summer – after the departure of Lionel Messi and Neymar in 2023 – was supposed to bring the end to the superstar culture at PSG. And President Nasser Al-Khelaifi claimed this weekend: “The PSG star is the team”. That can be culturally true, but not mathematically.
PSG scored 96 goals in their first 39 games in all competitions last season with Mbappe with 37 and Dembele only one. In this campaign they delivered 105, including 21 in the last four games. The side of Enrique is unbeaten in 23 games that goes back to the defeat in November in Bayern Munich. But performance and goals-per-match have improved since the pressure-fainted Champions League win in Manchester City in January. And Dembele has insisted that it is a team effort.
And after scoring his 18th league goal of the season in Lille last weekend, Dembele said: “Since the start of the season, the coach has told us to play good football and everyone is doing, everyone wants to be decisive. We are in a very good dynamic and we go for it as long as possible. Minutes.”
Asked to explain his improved form, Dembele added: “A little bit of everything. My positioning but especially the mentality, the desire to score and to be decisive in every match. I have the ball, I believe in it more for the goal and it goes in, I am happy. Liverpool? It will be difficult, it will be a very good match. We are sure, I think they will do that too, it will be a very good show. “
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