NewsLiverpool's Greatest - No.19: Sadio Mane
Years: 2016-2022
Appearances: 269
Goals: 120
Trophies: Champions League (2019), UEFA Super Cup (2019), FIFA Club World Cup (2019), Premier League (2019-20), League Cup (2022), FA Cup (2022)
Sadio Mane is one of the most devastatingly impactful attackers to have ever represented Liverpool.
The speedster dazzled throughout his six seasons as a Red, scoring 120 goals from 269 appearances and lifting six major honours.
His arrival from Southampton in the summer of 2016 was a key moment on the club’s journey back to football’s top table and elite success.
The Senegalese became the left prong of Jürgen Klopp’s much-feared front three – alongside Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino – that was regarded as one of the best attacks in the world.
The signs were encouraging from the very start, Mane blending outrageous skill and power with a warrior-like mentality.
He even got a piggyback from his new manager after scoring on his debut away at Arsenal in a thrilling 4-3 win.
Despite injury curtailing his maiden campaign, Mane was Liverpool’s Player of the Season in 2016-17 and fired in 13 goals to help secure Champions League qualification.
Heartbreak followed with defeat in the European Cup final at the end of 2017-18 – Mane scored the Reds’ consolation that night in Kyiv against Real Madrid – but if anything it spurred the player on even more.
Mane produced 26 goals in the 2018-19 campaign, which saw him help Klopp’s men win the Champions League and gain him the Premier League’s Golden Boot.
One of only three Africans to score 100 Premier League goals, he also won the competition in the historic 2019-20 term – and earned UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup medals too. His all-round output was again prodigious: 22 goals and 10 assists.
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Watch on YouTubeMane’s position was changed in his final season at the club – 2021-22 – by moving into a central attacking role, but his effectiveness did not waver.
Twenty-three goals from 51 appearances supported the Reds’ magnificent push for a quadruple in 2021-22, as he added the Carabao Cup and FA Cup to his hugely impressive CV.
“What he has done for this club puts him in the bracket of ‘legend’,” Klopp said at the time of Mane’s subsequent departure to Bayern Munich.
This top-20 placing among Liverpool’s Greatest proves just that.
“I can say, ‘Yeah, I achieved something’, which is very, very incredible for me,” said the man himself in his farewell message. “I will be always grateful for this amazing club.”
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