after reading this I’m glad we sold him!
Ironically this was the main criticism against him when we were signing him, that his goals seemed to come in fits and starts.
Still don’t get the thinking behind the interview he gave before the CL Final but he has been a great player for us.
Not sure we can read too much into the season disrupted by Covid but as Deneb says, he is a player whose goals do tend to come in fits and starts - he usually gets better numbers in the second half of the season than the first, and from what I read a few months ago his numbers in the first half of this season were very much in line with other seasons he has played for us.
For me he was still scoring but his influence in games has been dropping. The pace and energy was not as sustained as previous years.
I love Mane, and he remains better than 95% of strikers in the league. But if I am cold hearted objective about it I doubt he could sustain a level we have seen the past 3 years for the next 3.
Wide attackers peak 25-27 years, while strikers peak 26-28 years (the Athletic did a good article on this). I think the positional changes to more central role was Klopp somewhat accommodating Mane.
I would have loved to kept him another season but £30M plus £ 10M in saved wages is probably the right thing. Given how well Diaz has done I am fairly relaxed about this.
The more I think about it, our pursuit of Diaz was probably less about Spurs interest, and more likely due to signals from Manes camp, given we were probably not willing to offer a bumper final contract.
It was still brilliant though in 2nd half of season. But you’re right, there was a period a couple of years ago where he was our best defender and attacker. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a player with as much energy and fight
It was meant to be tagged to a post saying he didn’t suffer a slump like Salah.
Please tell me where it actually says we did right selling him.
I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but I fuckin detest Bayern.
If only he’d gone to Italy, or France, or anywhere else but those Arschlöcher!
@GermanRed @Eintrachtfan @Neukölln @Livvy
Back me up here!
granted you didnt state we should sell him,
but your damning statment on his goal droughts and goal returns
appears to me to be an aknowledgement that we did right in selling him
Read the post above for the explanation.
Dead serious - wish we would have sold him for less money to a PL rival than to Bayern.
Still a big chance that he might be a big time flop for Bayern.
Has there been a more sensitive player in recent years for us than Sadio? He is not going to get the same love from his new club and they won’t protect him if it doesn’t work out immediately.
But it will.
Sadio against BL defences? It will be slaughter.
They’ll sail through the CL qualifying and then we’ll see, but every Liverpool fan knows that he is capable at any level.
But Craig, didn’t Bayern execs (Beckenbauer etc) help you get your boot if the ground? Would be good if perhaps you made up with the lederhosen ponces and got cracking on your new boot instead of spending so much time on here!
That’s dead subjective, not dead serious.
my first post in this thread since it was announced he is leaving. At first honestly I was a bit peeved because after he made that pre-CL comment about announcement that is special and then that turns out to him leaving, I felt abit that he is taking the mickey out of the legions of fans who loved and adored him. But after that, of course taking into context that Mane has nothing but respect for the club and fans throughout his time here, I can only accept that comment was ill advised or a matter of it being a language translation thing or context.
He is leaving this club as a legend, nothing short. And he will always be welcomed back to this club. Hope you have a great next adventure!
Just a thought with Sadio, Gini and Mo having left leaving, could this be also down to they way we play with high energy football.
Could the afore mentioned want an easier pay day where they don’t work as hard?
Other than @GernanRed I wouldn‘t like seeing Mane playing for any other PL-Team than us.
At least he can‘t do any damage to us.
I‘m curious if Mane will have a fieldday every Bundesliga game next season.
I don‘t expect it.
Lots of angst on this thread, wow. My opinion is that he was really poor to above average for a large part of two years on the left, moved to the middle and had a really good six months. Would that have been sustainable into a large part of a three or four year contract? I’d say the chances would have been less than good and for a Club that still rather depends on not carrying too much dead weight, I don’t think it was a risk they were wanting to take and rightly so. I personally would have been happy with 40m and thank you for the memories, turned out to be 35m but the memories still remain so it’s a win/win for everyone. We get a decent fee, he gets a bigger packet and a chance to pad his career titles and stats in a one team league playing for the one team.
As it is, Salah and Mane’s contracts expire at the same time and Salah already said he’s staying so as I said before, we can’t lose both on a free and I’d rather go into the next season with Salah than Mane; at his very best Mane ‘might’ come close Salah for goals but still lags in assists and I don’t see Mane scoring 30 and assisting 20 to be completely honest while with Salah, that’s really quite feasible. Sadio was great for us, let’s give him his due but he’s not the same player he was and every team goes through the evolution of having to replace their winners, this is our time to do so and its better to do it one cog at a time like it seems we are rather having to do it all in one window.
Thanks for the memories, good luck in Germany but not all that fussed, especially after his ‘special news’.