Kevin Nolan heaped praise on Liverpool attacker Sadio Mane and claimed the winger had made an incredible start to the season.
The Sky Sports pundit stated that he thought the 27-year-old was an unbelievable athlete due to the positions he could get his body in to and shared that he thought he had improved in recent seasons.
Nolan revealed that he believes Mane was now able to score a bigger range of goals and then proceeded to share how the Reds attacker must look after himself off the pitch in order to keep up with his hectic fixture schedule.
“Yeah he’s an unbelievable athlete, you can see that when he plays,” said Nolan on Sky Sports News (11:24am, Tuesday, August 20th).
“Some of the positions he gets his body into are unbelievable, I think he has just come on as a complete attacker now.
“Some of the goals he scores, different type of goals, headers, tap-ins, what we were talking about with Martial (Anthony) earlier on, he does it now and you could see that last season.
“And the way he has started this season off, it’s incredible, as you’ve said the work he has done over the summer and the games he has played, so to come back and play like he has never been away is a testament to how well he lives his life and how well he does off the field to help provide what he does on the field week-in, week-out.”
OPINION
Mane helped get Senegal to the African Cup of Nations final in the summer and as a result, didn’t have as much of a holiday as some of his Reds teammates before returning to action. Yet it seems Mane’s lack of break isn’t harming him thus far. The 27-year-old has scored three goals in his first three outings, with his latest goal being the stunning one he scored against Southampton on Saturday, and doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. Mane achieved a rating of 8.56 in the 2-1 victory over Southampton and wasn’t just impressive due to his goal. The winger also carved out the chance which allowed Roberto Firmino to slot the ball home and made five key passes, which was more than any other player on the pitch on Saturday (Source: WhoScored). Mane wowed last season by scoring 22 goals in 36 league outings and if he can somehow achieve even better numbers than he will no doubt help his side potentially lift the Premier League title for the first time in the club’s history this season.
