Mo Salah's five 30-goal seasons is a surprisingly rare achievement

Mohamed Salah's goal for Liverpool against Manchester City this afternoon was his 30th for Liverpool in all competitions this season. It's the fifth time he's scored 30 goals in a season.

I think we'd probably all agree that 20 or 25 goals in a season is a decent return for a striker, but 30 goals is a great tally. So I thought it would be interesting to poke around in the archives and see how many other strikers had managed it 5 or more times, like Salah, whilst playing for clubs in the top division (First Division until 1992, Premier League since).

You might be surprised just how rare that achievement is. Many, many strikers who you'd regard as prolific didn't manage 5 30-goal seasons whilst playing for clubs in the top division. Alan Shearer didn't manage it. Sergio Aguero didn't. Gary Lineker didn't. Going back a bit further, the likes of Denis Law and Roger Hunt didn't. Stan Mortensen and Nat Lofthouse didn't.

Here's the list that I've compiled. I can't guarantee it's 100% complete, but it's pretty close. (I used Wikipedia, but it doesn't have detailed career stats for every player. If anybody can point to any omissions, please do!) I've denoted each season by the year in which it ended.

• Dave Halliday (5): Sunderland 1926, 27, 28, 29, Man City 1932

• Dixie Dean (5): Everton 1926, 28, 31, 32, 33

• Jimmy Greaves (9): Chelsea 1959, 60, 61, Tottenham 1962, 63, 64, 65, 67, 69

• Ian Rush (5): Liverpool 1982, 83, 84, 86, 87

• Ian Wright (5): Palace/Arsenal 1992, Arsenal 1993, 94, 95, 97

• Thierry Henry (5): Arsenal 2002, 03, 04, 05, 06

• Sergio Agüero (5): Man City 2012, 15, 17, 18, 19

• Harry Kane (5): Tottenham 2015, 17, 18, 21, 23

• Mohamed Salah (5): Liverpool 2018, 21, 22, 23, 25