Mohamed Salah may have a rival for Liverpool’s Player of the Year award as we reach the business end of the season. Sadio Mané is catching fire right now.
Rewind to December and there’s little doubt who the standout player at Liverpool was this season – Mohamed Salah. He was the standout player in the world, as far as we’re concerned, playing to a standard no one could match.
But now we’re in mid-April, things are a little different. The Egyptian is going through a quiet spell, having not scored from open play in two months. It’s a run of form that no one saw coming, certainly.
Salah is still playing well, of course, and he put in a fine display at the Etihad last week. But his lack of goals – and assists, for that matter – does open the door for others to ‘catch up’. Liverpool are after four trophies this season, for one thing, and there’s room to be the club’s decisive player.
And one player is making a late charge to rival Salah as Liverpool’s key man in their Quadruple pursuit. Sadio Mané is catching fire at the right time.
Mohamed Salah has a rival at Liverpool
Mané started this season several levels below Salah. He just wasn’t delivering anything like the same kind of influence few would be shocked to hear that he isn’t playing on the left-wing as often as he used to.
However, we certainly didn’t predict that it would be because Mané is establishing himself as an elite False 9. Jurgen Klopp made the change in 2022 and the results are extraordinary. The Senegal star returned from AFCON an ‘incredible’ hero and carried that form to Anfield.
Mané’s latest display came at Wembley, of course, with two fantastic goals as the Reds beat Manchester City 3-2. This comes after a vital goal in Portugal against Benfica and an equaliser last week away at City.
They’re huge moments in Liverpool’s season, now, with the opportunity there for many more to come. If the Mané keeps this form up – and it has been coming – then we could well look back at him as the star Red this season, and not Salah.