Sadio Mane and his agent went to Liverpool and asked for €24m/year in a prospective new deal – which works out at exactly £392,830/week after the euros to pounds conversion.
This is according to Sport Bild, translated for us by reliable Twitter journalist iMiaSanMia.
For this money, it’s perhaps no surprise Liverpool walked away from negotiations, although from the player’s perspective, you can see why he’d want to be paid akin to the best footballers on the planet, given how highly he’ll rank in this year’s Ballon d’Or.
According to the report, Bayern are considering offering Mane €20m/year, which the player is content with. The figure is far, far more than he’s currently on at Liverpool, of course.
The Athletic reckon Liverpool will demand ‘significantly more than the €30 million fee that has been reported in Germany,’ which is good – as there’s no way we’ll be able to get a forward who can even tie Mane’s boots for that kind of money.
The list of potential replacements is already into double figures, and you’d have to assume the Reds won’t sanction a sale until a new forward has been lined up or even better, already through the door.
With Luis Diaz our first-choice down the left, it would make more sense for Liverpool to look at bringing in a centre-forward. This is where Mane has been for the past six months.
It might be that for the first time in many a season, Liverpool can consider signing a more traditional centre-forward, as opposed to the false-9s Jurgen Klopp has preferred for most of his tenure.