After five games last season, Liverpool were already well set up for a massive run at the Premier League title. They had scored 12 goals and conceded just one on their way to 13 of 15 points, following up their great end to an otherwise poor 2020-21 campaign with a flying start. Sadio Mane had scored three goals and given notice that he was about to turn in probably his best string of performances in a red shirt.
In 2022-23 he has started even better. He scored twice last weekend in a 7-0 away win and now has three goals in three games in a side which has scored 15 and conceded only one in taking nine points from nine. At the age of 30, he has been easily the most convincing player among the attacking trio which famously led Liverpool to that long-awaited Premier League crown in 2020.
But the problem for Liverpool is that Mane is now a Bayern Munich player. While Roberto Firmino appears to have long since passed his career peak and Mohamed Salah has struggled to rediscover the form that deserted him so markedly after the Africa Cup of Nations earlier this year, Mane is continuing his fine form far away from Anfield.
READ MORE:
- Liverpool 2021-22 is the second-best team in PL history
- Mane makes African POTY shortlist
- UCL: Liverpool 11/2 to win, Bayern 13/2*
Reds boss Jurgen Klopp admitted when the Senegalese star left the club in the summer that it was a huge blow. “It’s a big moment. There is no point in anyone trying to pretend otherwise,” he said. “One of Liverpool’s greatest ever players is leaving and we must acknowledge how significant this is… The goals he scored, the trophies he won; a legend, for sure, but also a modern-day Liverpool icon.”
And the weight of those words has never been so greatly felt as right now. Three games in, Liverpool are winless and 16th. Without the fearsome front three of a couple of years ago, opponents are backing themselves to counter-attack the Reds more readily. Their midfield, particularly since Thiago Alcantara’s injury, has looked more exposed as a result and the back-line is finding itself being attacked in all the areas in which they are normally protected.
A win against Bournemouth in L4 on Saturday will help to ease some of the concerns, but the truth is that Mane’s defection has left Klopp with the biggest headache he could have been given in his forward line. He may have added Luis Diaz last season and Darwin Nunez in the summer, but neither has the characteristics to replace what Mane provided. The new pair are almost direct replacements for Firmino and Salah in the way that they play, but neither have the workrate the Senegalese provided for six years at Anfield.
“It’s easy for me to say it, but I have been thinking it, you can’t just let a player like Sadio Mane leave and replace him,” former Liverpool star Dean Saunders rightly pointed out on talkSPORT this week. “It affects the whole team. You just have to think about what he does in a game.
“Every time the ball is kicked long towards him or Salah the ball sticks. They’ve got glue on the end of their toe. They’re both strong, so you can’t knock them off the ball. He carries the fight on the left-hand side. He does more than just score, he carries the whole left side of the pitch.”
It may be true that Manchester City will again be Liverpool’s biggest blockade to a Premier League title and Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur are expected to be better this season, but in truth the Merseysiders’ biggest concern is going to come from within. Just how do you replace perhaps the most irreplaceable player in your squad?
*18+ | BeGambleAware | Odds Subject to Change
