Mohamed Salah will go down as one of Liverpool's greatest-ever players, but when he and Sadio Mane were approaching the final year of their respective contracts, it was the Senegalese who should've received the club's biggest-ever contract.
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When you speak to Reds fans, they eulogise over players like Kenny Dalglish, Michael Owen, Robbie Fowler and Steven Gerrard. With good reason, they are players that have etched their names in the club's history books and will be remembered forever. However, above them all in terms of goals is the Pharaohs talisman. Salah is third in the club's all-time top goalscorers list with 210 strikes and has won everything there is to win since arriving at Anfield.
During most of his time in Merseyside, Salah shared the limelight with another African star in Mane. While you may look at the 120 goals that the two-time CAF Men's Player of the Year has scored while playing for the English giants and think that his legacy at Liverpool pales in comparison to his north African counterpart, but it couldn't be further from the truth.
A lot of what the Senegal international did with the six-time European champions was unquantifiable by goal contributions as he was often the difference maker for Jurgen Klopp's charges when the team needed a piece of individual brilliance. Just looking at his final season in the Premier League and it was quite remarkable how close he came to winning the Ballon d'Or. Although he only scored 23 goals in all competitions that season compared to Salah's 31, a lot of those strikes came in the latter part of the season when they were chasing a historic quadruple.
His goals weren't just goals, they were complimented with quality performances and that is something that is often overlooked when discussing Egypt's captain. He is able to gloss over average or subpar showings by finding the back of the net.
In that 2021/22 season, Mane came up big for the Reds in major moments. He had returned to Melwood with a renewed sense of confidence after beating his teammate in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations final and had seemingly reached a zenith in terms of form. In the league, his performance away to Aston Villa stands out, while in the UEFA Champions League he was integral in those semi-final triumphs over Villarreal home and away.
That season was particularly tricky for the Liverpool hierarchy because both of their best players were approaching the final 12 months of their existing deals. However, with both entering their 30s, perhaps it made sense for them to only be willing to ty down one of their superstar attackers to a club record deal, even though both were deserving of it.
The club would ultimately decide to stick with Salah even though Mane had just finished second behind Karim Benzema in the race for the Golden Ball, the highest an African has achieved since George Weah won it in 1995. The north African would sign a £350 000-a-week (R8.2 million) three-year extension, while the Lions of Teranga's all-time top goalscorer would sign with Bayern Munich and make even more, according to Capology, who report that his weekly wages in Bavaria were €423 000 (R8.6 million).
There were some simmering tensions between the two as was highlighted on an August 2019 afternoon at Turf Moor during the 2019/20 campaign, and again when Mane returned from winning the AFCON and was not congratulated warmly by the club out of respect for his Egyptian counterpart.
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Mane always came up big when it mattered most, and not that Salah is not a world class talent and didn't score in highly pressurised situations, it's just that the west African had a tendency to always save his best performances for when it mattered most and for that I think Klopp should've given him the extension over the Nagrig native.
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