Demba Ba says he’ll slap Sadio Mane’s face if LFC no.10 says Messi is better than him

Jordan Chamberlain

Demba Ba is an old enemy of Liverpool for reasons we don’t need to go into, but we quite like his latest comments on Sadio Mane’s Ballon d’Or bid!

The former Newcastle and Chelsea striker has lauded his Senegalese countryman and claimed Mane should have won the Ballon d’Or for 2019 ahead of Lionel Messi – despite the Argentine’s superior goalscoring numbers.

Interestingly, he says that everyone knows Messi is the best player on the planet, but that Mane’s achievements last calendar year should have seen him named the world’s leading footballer.

“I always said if you swap Mane’s stats in 2019 with Messi’s, Messi still would have won it, even with fewer goals,” Ba began, cited in the Echo.

“The fact that Mane won the Champions League, the Super Cup, he played an unbelievable season and finished joint top goal-scorer in the Premier League, it’s crazy!

“Not only that, he was decisive in all of the games. I believe he could’ve won it.

“I’ve had this talk with a lot of players. They say ‘yeah, but Messi is a better player’. Of course, everyone knows that!

“Even if Sadio comes and tells me that he’s better than Messi, I’d slap him in his face and tell him ‘shut up boy, sit down!’ But in 2019, in my perspective, he had a better season.”

In all honesty, we’re not that fussed with individual awards. The manner in which UEFA crowbarred Cristiano Ronaldo into their Team of the Year, and the fact Sergio Ramos and Marcelo made FIFA’s version, suggest it’s mainly rubbish.

What we do care about is our glorious bunch of players adding to their trophy cabinet this season with team prizes, however!

We’ve already collected the Super Cup and the Club World Cup – but the big one is the Premier League.

That being said, we’re still in both the FA Cup and the Champions League, so perhaps we can maintain a three-pronged attack.