Form Rankings: Salah soars up the leaderboard as Ronaldo claims top spot
There were some notable performances to say the very least over the weekend, with three players scoring four goals in a single game. That was a feat that had only occurred six times all season previous, although Mauro Icardi’s goal glut back at Sampdoria wasn’t enough to see him move onto the form rankings leaderboard.
Based on each player’s average rating over their last six league appearances - each must have appeared in at least two of the last three available and at least six of the last eight to qualify - it is instead Cristiano Ronaldo that perhaps unsurprisingly leads the way.
The Portuguese had seen his powers questioned before the turn of the year, struggling to have the same impact in the final third, but he has put any such fears to bed with a quite remarkable run of goalscoring form.
With four goals and an assist in an equally astonishing game against Girona on Sunday - ending 6-3 to the reigning LaLiga champions - Ronaldo took his tallies over the last six league matches to 14 and two respectively. With strikes in each of his last eight appearances in all competitions, the 33-year-old is, all of a sudden - in the form of his life in front of goal.
That is certainly the case for Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah too, who has now moved three clear in the race for the European Golden Shoe, with four at the weekend against Watford taking his league tally alone to an outrageous 28. The Egyptian moves up 13 places after a subdued display at Old Trafford into the top five.
There are significant climbers elsewhere too, with Salah’s former Reds teammate Philippe Coutinho acclimatising to life at Barcelona with impressive ease, now up into 17th, and he’s not the only former Premier League star on the rise.
Another ex-Liverpool man in Suso has jumped onto the leaderboard in 15th, along with Roma’s Aleksandar Kolarov (14th), Hoffenheim forward Andrej Kramaric (ninth) and Saint-Etienne’s Remy Cabella (eighth) - formerly of Newcastle.
The biggest leap, however, is by Angers winger Flavien Tait, who scored a stunning goal and registered an assist in a 3-0 win over Caen to build on an impressive showing at PSG last week. He moves all the way up into seventh, climbing a whopping 76 places in the process, while the only new qualifier in the top 20 is Real Madrid’s Lucas Vazquez, who is beginning to play an increasingly prominent role at the Bernabeu, with two goals and four assists in his last six league outings.
