Micah Richards has been purring over one former Liverpool dynamo who he’s ranked above John Barnes on a list of the top 10 all-time Premier League wingers.
The ex-Manchester City defender joined Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer on the BBC Match of the Day Top 10 Podcast to make their selections, with the 35-year-old placing the Senegal star seventh, ahead of Riyad Mahrez, Robert Pires and the legendary ‘Digger’.
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Richards explained: “Sadio Mane, he should be higher. The peer pressure has got to me from social media. He was at number seven for me. He had everything, didn’t he?
“Who do we think is better all-round? We know [Mo] Salah is the better goalscorer, but who’s the better all-round player?”
Even if Barnes was approaching the twilight years of his career by the time the Premier League began, it’s still quite a feather in Mane’s cap for Richards to rank him above ‘Digger’ in the division’s top 10 wingers.
That said, the Senegalese wizard was a crucial factor in Liverpool’s success under Jurgen Klopp, scoring 120 times in 269 appearances for the Reds and winning the biggest prizes on offer at Anfield (Transfermarkt).
Along with Salah and Bobby Firmino, he formed a core part of an attacking triumvirate which was the envy of even the biggest clubs in European football, hence why Bayern Munich signed him in 2022.
The £34m that LFC spent to acquire Mane in 2016 proved to be an almighty bargain considering his output and how effortlessly he slotted into the team.
In time when we reflect on our best years under Klopp, the Senegal attacker will be recognised as one of the central figures to our Premier League and Champions League triumphs. A genius of a player!
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