When tabling a humble offer for Sadio Mane, some will undoubtedly be inclined to highlight the fact that the 30-year-old’s contract is due to expire next summer.
Highly pertinent as that is, James Pearce noted that Liverpool’s negotiators believe Bayern Munich’s own valuation for Robert Lewandowski indicates the kind of fee that should be handed to the side for the 23-goal attacker.
“The Bundesliga champions have pointed to the fact that Liverpool only paid them £25 million in September 2020 for midfielder Thiago, who like Mane was down to the final year of his contract,” the reporter wrote in a joint piece with Raphael Honigstein for The Athletic.
“However, Anfield officials believe a fairer comparison is Bayern’s current €50 million (£42 million) valuation of Robert Lewandowski, who wants to leave the Allianz Arena this summer and join Barcelona.
“Both players are out of contract in 2023 but Mane is three years younger than the Poland striker.”
That would be ignoring the fact that Senegalese international secured the AFCON earlier in the year with Aliou Cisse’s men and is a strong contender for the Ballon d’Or in light of his phenomenal efforts in the second-half of the campaign.
Whilst we can appreciate that Mane is in the latter stages of his career on top of his current contractual situation, if Bayern value their star hitman at almost double what they’re willing to pay for our No.10 then something is very much wrong with the negotiations.
Given that we’re reportedly prepared to drop our asking price to £38.5m, we’re certainly being more accommodating to the German champions than they are currently with Barcelona.
With a deal nearing for Darwin Nunez, one might be inclined to assume that the club expect headway to be made on this front to help finance a move for the Uruguayan international.