There’s no way that Sadio Mane will re-join Liverpool if he leaves Bayern Munich this summer.
Things have gone badly wrong for Mane since he left the Reds for Bayern Munich last summer. After just a year in Germany, the 31-year-old now looks set to leave in the upcoming transfer market. With that in mind Ally McCoist was asked on TalkSPORT this morning which Premier League team Mane would fit in best at.
“Dear me, what a question that is,” said the bewildered pundit. “I don’t think he’s coming back to the Premier League. It’s been a bit of a disaster for him hasn’t it?
“He had the incident with his teammate [Leroy] Sane. It’s not been good for him at all, looks like he’ll leave at the end of the season. [Joao] Cancelo could leave at the end of the season as well by the way!”
Asked by host Laura Woods whether he thinks Mane would consider a return to Liverpool, McCoist gave an emphatic response. “No, I actually don’t,” he said.
Mane set to leave Munich
It’s a real shame the way things have gone for Mane in Munich. Having left for £35m with the best wishes of all at Liverpool, there’s no joy in seeing his decline.
What it does do though, is put a huge pin in the suggestions that the Reds have been suffering this season due to Mane’s absence. Those claims have been rumbling all year long, with Paul Merson an especially serial offender.
But as Liverpool have shown plenty of signs of life with a new attacking line-up, Mane has only scored once for Bayern since November. A single strike in his last 17 appearances. That’s so desperately poor for a player who came second in last year’s Ballon d’Or standings.
For a lot of Liverpool fans though, this won’t necessarily be a surprise. Mane had been in pretty sharp decline since the middle of the 2020/21 season. This drop-off was masked last season by a good return of goals while playing as a centre-forward, but his all-round play and more importantly his athleticism seemed to drop off a cliff.
Were it not for the incident McCoist mentions with Leroy Sane, it could be that Bayern would have given Sadio another year to prove himself. But fighting with teammates whilst being in such bad personal form is not a good look.
As a result, German journalist Florian Plettenberg confirmed on Sky Sports yesterday that the Senegalese looks set to be sold.
Quite where he’ll end up is anyone’s guess. But having pushed to leave Liverpool a year ago, it’s desperately unlikely that he’ll be on his way back to Anfield. There’d be plenty amongst the fan base who would welcome him back. Unless Mane is willing to take a big pay-cut and accept life as back-up though, it isn’t going to happen.
Receive a digest of our best Liverpool content each week direct to your mailbox
