By Jack Lusby, ThisIsAnfield.com
Mohamed Salah has been by far the most influential player in this season’s Premier League, leading the top flight for goals (27), assists (17), big chances created (21) and xG and xA per 90 minutes (1.02).
No player has scored more match-winning goals (nine), while the Egyptian has by far the most involvement in his team’s goals, with 63.8 percent either scored or assisted by Liverpool’s No. 11.
That not only sums up how remarkable Salah’s form has been throughout a campaign that has cemented the Reds as champions-elect, but also the burden on his shoulders to drag them to the title.
No other Liverpool player has scored 10 or more goals in this season’s Premier League, with Salah’s fellow forwards Luis Díaz (nine) and Cody Gakpo (eight) the only others to even net five or more. Across all competitions their output of 13 and 16 goals each is more respectable, but five of Gakpo’s came in the fourth-priority Carabao Cup.
While it may be something of a rarity, the last time Liverpool had a genuine share of goals between two or more players was when they last lifted the Premier League title in 2019/20 – Salah with 19 and Sadio Mané with 18.
The season before that, Salah and Mané were tied with 22 league goals apiece, with the pair sharing the Golden Boot with Arsenal striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in only the third time the award has been held by three players at once.
Barring a miraculous run in the final nine games of the season, neither Gakpo or Díaz – nor Darwin Núñez or Diogo Jota, for that matter – will come close to even troubling the top five in this season’s Golden Boot race.
That is not to denigrate their input, of course, as all of Liverpool’s five most established senior forwards have had their part to play in an outstanding campaign – but such an unbalanced spread of goals is not tenable season in, season out.
It is a dynamic shift which Arne Slot will be forced to deal with, particularly if Salah himself opts to depart Anfield at the end of the season.
Which brings the focus back to Salah’s old partner-in-crime in attack, Mané, a player whom he shared far from the most amiable relationship at times on the pitch but certainly found a fierce understanding as part of the best attacking trio in the world.
Roberto Firmino‘s influence on Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool was almost unparalleled and it is widely acknowledged that the club have yet to replace the No. 9, but it is equally clear that they have failed to replace Mané as the clutch player alongside Salah.
During Liverpool’s title-winning season of 2019/20, Salah was only responsible for 34.1 percent of his team’s goals – with 12 players, led by Norwich’s Teemu Pukki, more relied upon. That was largely due to Mané contributing with another 29.4 percent of their goals and assists. This season, Díaz has contributed to 18.8 percent as Liverpool’s second-highest.
There were big moments from the Senegalese, not least seven match-winning goals in that league campaign – behind only Raúl Jimenez and Gabriel Jesus (both eight) and equal to both Salah and Firmino – as he became a flat-track bully of sides such as Newcastle, Aston Villa, Wolves, Norwich, West Ham and Bournemouth.
His brave header in the fourth minute of stoppage time in a 2-1 win over Villa was considered the moment that truly kickstarted Liverpool’s title charge.
Salah (45) and Steven Gerrard (30) are the only players to score more Champions League goals for the club than Mané (24), with the pair having made at least 18 more appearances in the competition each.
In fact only 14 players in Liverpool’s history have found the back of the net more often than Mané’s 120 goals in 269 games. Post-war, with records more reliable and the sport drastically changed, he would be in the top 10 behind only Ian Rush, Roger Hunt, Salah, Billy Liddell, Gerrard, Robbie Fowler, Kenny Dalglish and Michael Owen.
Those names are among the most esteemed in the club’s history, but it is rare that Mané’s is spoken in the same breath.
That may be as he found himself overshadowed by Salah, or perhaps as there was more of a parity between him, Salah and Firmino; it may be due a lack of attachment after his departure to Bayern Munich or the downturn he has experienced since.
But the difficulty Liverpool have faced in adequately replacing the player who once wore their No. 10 shirt should sum up how important he was to their success.
“He’s the one player I have played with who I have thought I am glad I don’t have to play against him,” Trent Alexander-Arnold told Gary Neville in an interview for The Overlap last year.
“He was the perfect attacker. He had everything. As an athlete, probably in the end he was similar to Ronaldo. He had the jump, he could get up, he was fast, he could finish. His finishing probably wasn’t the same but he could finish with both feet. He was just a threat at all times.”
Mané possessed a bullish attacking threat and an assured two-footedness that allowed him to trouble sides from either flank and, towards the end of his time at Anfield, as a central striker. As Alexander-Arnold attests, he became as dangerous in the air as he was on the ground, while his pace on the counter was a major part of Klopp’s setup.
For a time, it seemed as though Díaz could offer the same maverick quality, but two serious injuries to the same knee appear to have sapped the Colombian of either his confidence or that unpredictability in one-on-one situations.
It is also fair to say that Liverpool are still yet to find another attacker as ruthless as Mané; as willing and capable of charging down lost causes; as decisive around in the 18-yard box.
Slot has, of course, opted for a different mould of left winger in Gakpo, whose ability to cut inside onto his right and test goalkeepers with phenomenal shooting power has drawn understandable comparisons with Arjen Robben.
But there remains a hole in the Liverpool squad where Mané’s attributes used to be, and ahead of a summer that could see a number of attackers leave – with question marks over Díaz, Núñez and Jota’s future along with Salah’s contract – it would be wise for the club to target a player with the same relentless quality.
Whether that is possible is, of course, another matter – as Mané’s focal role in Liverpool modern-day success should be more widely acknowledged. A legend who still has not been replaced.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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