Is it time for Liverpool star Sadio Mane to move on?
The fall of Barcelona has been on the cards for a while. In-fighting, wasted money, a loss of values and a couple of poor choices in head coach have left the Catalan giants looking like a shell of their former selves. Despite the multiple warning signs, no one really thought that this footballing superpower would crack as deeply as it has in the past month.
An 8-2 loss at the hands of Bayern Munich was followed by the sacking of coach Quique Setien after just seven months at the helm and the earth-shattering news that star Lionel Messi was ready to quit the club.
There are rumours of a mammoth uncontrollable wage that has seen other star players Luis Suarez and Arturo Vidal being told they can leave for nothing. The decisions have been made as Barcelona look to refocus their vision and find their feet at the top of the world game once again.
This means that new coach Ronald Koeman will be out shopping for stars over the coming months and years as he looks to fill the massive Messi and Suarez shaped hole in his squad. Of course, there is no single player out there that could fill such a void but one person that Koeman thinks might help paper over the gaping chasm is Liverpool star Sadio Mane.
Of course, Mane is a phenomenal player and there isn’t a club in the world that wouldn’t want him. Real Madrid apparently tried and failed to get him last summer and now it seems as though Barcelona will make the Senegal forward their number one target in the coming year.
On first reading the rumour I laughed off such a notion as pure nonsense as I am sure most fans have. Why would he want to leave the best team in England and the best coach in the world and head to a fallen giant?
And more importantly, why the hell would we sell?
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When I look closer at the move there is a lot that makes sense and I am starting to find myself open to Mane moving on.
Let’s get one thing straight, Sadio Mane is going nowhere in this transfer window. Barcelona are currently a total basket case and they will need to sell on some players before any serious rebuilding can take place, but once the 2020/21 season ends I feel that selling the Senegalese star to Spain could be the way to go.
Liverpool’s front three have been phenomenal for the past few seasons. However, despite us winning our first Premier League title, there was a definite drop off in the goals to games ratio from them.
You could say that it was a tactical tweak from the Klopp that saw the goals spread around a little bit more, but my opinion is simple, nothing lasts forever.
For years I watched as Sir Alex Ferguson built and rebuilt squads at Manchester Utd. I have seen massive stars sold on and hoped and prayed that the move would signal the end of the Old Trafford dominance only for a new more energetic Utd to rise and win the league again.
What Ferguson showed us is that holding on to players for sentimental reasons is wrong, you need to continue building and reinventing if you want to stay ahead of the competition.
Mane will be 29 next season and will only have two years remaining on his current contract. According to some reports Liverpool offered their star striker an extension nine months ago, which is still to be signed.
This means it could be a good time to cash in while his value is still high and his long term future uncertain. This will in turn free up some cash and allow us to stay fresh and continue our long term vision of total dominance in the Premier League.
I don’t want Sadio Mane to leave, I love the guy and think what he has done for this club is outstanding.
However, I and every other Liverpool fan in the world thought the same about Philippe Coutinho and look how that panned out for us.