{"id":2256,"date":"2022-09-21T13:33:35","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T13:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/?p=2256"},"modified":"2022-09-21T13:33:35","modified_gmt":"2022-09-21T13:33:35","slug":"are-liverpool-missing-sadio-mane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/are-liverpool-missing-sadio-mane\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Liverpool Missing Sadio Man\u00e9?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The revaluation that UEFA had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2022\/sep\/21\/uefa-pre-prepared-champions-league-final-statement-blaming-late-fans-liverpool\"> pre-planned to blame Liverpool fans<\/a> for any issues at the Champions League final on the 28th of May should send shockwaves through football. It was clear from the moment that an announcement pinning the delay to kick-off on the \u2018late arrival of fans\u2019 that the governing body for football in Europe wasn\u2019t going to be taking any blame for the issues people were experiencing, but to see that the excuse was in place the day before the match even took place is genuinely shocking. In truth, my fear is that nothing will happen because it\u2019s Liverpool. To rival supporters, being able to fall back on old stereotypes is far more important than trying to get the best situation in place for football fans in general. In the wake of the match, you only needed to look on Twitter to see the manner in which supporters of clubs from Manchester to Rotherham were keen to use the official line as a stick with which to attack Reds.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">This is actually insane, UEFA wrote the statement blaming Liverpool fans before the day of the match &#x1f628; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/k11uVzfAdP\">pic.twitter.com\/k11uVzfAdP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Zack (@Zackoaten1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Zackoaten1\/status\/1572540525395472387?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 21, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It isn\u2019t right, it isn\u2019t fair and it isn\u2019t the way that human beings should react, but the desperation to repeat the old slurs has been easy to spot from the outset. It was always going to be an easy out for UEFA, to help them avoid any blame for genuinely woeful preparations for the final. Though I have some sympathy for them in the sense that there were limited options in terms of where the final could be held once it was clear that it needed to be moved away from St. Petersburg, so much more could have been done to get things right in terms of organisation. UEFA, of course, only cares about whether the big-wigs can be looked after in comfort, caring not a jot for regular supporters. It was only thanks to the calmness and sensible-thinking of Liverpool fans that lives weren\u2019t lost in Paris, with this latest revelation showing that, if they had been, UEFA were planning to turn to the playbook of 1989 to get away from any scrutiny. They failed.<\/p>\n<h2>Missing Sadio<\/h2>\n<p>Away from the disgrace that is UEFA, I wanted to talk a wee bit about how pundits have reacted to Liverpool\u2019s poor start to the season. The moment that Liverpool drew against Fulham on our opening day of the campaign, the first pundit said the inevitable. We were missing Sadio Man\u00e9. Never mind the fact that the Senegalese international had all but forced his way out of the club. Forget about the small issue of him no longer being a Liverpool player. The Reds were missing him and all of our problems could be pinned on the decision to sell him to Bayern Munich. This overly simplistic attitude isn\u2019t helpful, but also isn\u2019t all that true. Though the conclusion of Man\u00e9\u2019s time on Merseyside was that of a player seemingly in the form of his life, the forward had only really played well for six of his previous 18 months at the club. He was another year older, so it was the right decision to let his legs go on someone else\u2019s watch.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Casual reminder that Liverpool absolutely sold Sadio Mane at the right time and he&#8217;s a fading force. Struggling to impress at Bayern.<\/p>\n<p>This narrative that the Reds are missing him hugely is nonsense. Just not what he once was.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Henry Jackson (@HenryJackson87) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HenryJackson87\/status\/1571467773750157312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 18, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Man\u00e9 has so far played seven Bundelsiga goals for Munich and three in the Champions League. During that time, he\u2019s scored three league goals, none in Europe and he\u2019s failed to register an assist. Though Liverpool haven\u2019t looked right in an attacking sense, it is difficult to argue that Man\u00e9 would have been the solution had he stayed. Obviously there are plenty of people arguing just that, but the reality is that Man\u00e9 doesn\u2019t seem to be any more immune to the tiredness that is affecting his former teammates than they are. I loved Sadio Man\u00e9. I think he was a brilliant player and an amazing man. I\u2019m very glad to have been able to seen him play in the red of Liverpool Football Club, but the idea that his departure has been the catalyst for our travails is nonsensical. Yes, he\u2019s having to fit into a new system and play with new teammates, but it\u2019s not as if Bayern are pulling up any trees with him in the team.<\/p>\n<h2>Darwin Needs Time To Settle<\/h2>\n<p>What makes Man\u00e9\u2019s absence seem more influential than it actually is is the fact that Darwin N\u00fc\u00f1ez, the man who was sort of brought in to replace him, still hasn\u2019t settled into life on Merseyside. Even so, the Uruguayan has a goal and an assist in his three Premier League starts, one of which he played less than an hour in. He seems nervous on the ball at the moment, as though he\u2019s trying to prove that he worth the price tag when he has no need to do so. His time at the club hasn\u2019t been helped by the sending off, but it has also been marred by a dysfunctional midfield that hasn\u2019t been able to assist the forwards in any meaningful manner. Given the absence of Diogo Jota through injury, we were always going to look as if we missed Man\u00e9 if his sort of replacement didn\u2019t hit the ground running. With Jota now back and Darwin having made his mistake that he\u2019s hopefully learned from, Sadio\u2019s absence will be less keenly felt.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I would fully understand the Darwin Nunez slander if he had played a whole season, he has played 259 minutes for Liverpool. &#x1f602;&#x1f602;<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Rebekka (@rebekkarnold) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rebekkarnold\/status\/1572480748262756359?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 21, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>If we can also get N\u00fc\u00f1ez to the point that he feels more relaxed with his teammates, we should start to get the best out of him. For his own part, Luis Diaz has been working well on the right hand side and has settled into the team nicely. As the goals start to fly in for him, my suspicion is that we\u2019ll all wonder what the fuss about Man\u00e9 was at the start of the season. We all want to be challenging for the title and the fact that City are already eight points clear of us, albeit having played a game more, means that many people will be wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is a desperation from many to look for an easy excuse for Liverpool\u2019s early season malaise, so it is little wonder that the absence of Sadio Man\u00e9 is the thing that so many people have been keen to turn to. I don\u2019t think it stands up to scrutiny, however, and I think the end of the season will prove as much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The revaluation that UEFA had pre-planned to blame Liverpool fans for any issues at the Champions League final on the 28th of May should send shockwaves through football. It was clear from the moment that an announcement pinning the delay to kick-off on the \u2018late arrival of fans\u2019 that the governing body for football in Europe wasn\u2019t going to be taking any blame for the issues people were experiencing, but to see that the excuse was in place the day before the match even took place is genuinely shocking. In truth, my fear is that nothing will happen because it\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2257,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions\/2257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}