OPINION
Steve Sidwell claimed that Liverpool could cope without Sadio Mane ahead of the clash with Arsenal as they had other players who could go into the team and do his job.
While no player should really be seen as undroppable by a side, the pundit’s claim that Liverpool wouldn’t be fazed if they didn’t have Mane to call upon seemed rather bold indeed.
“I just look at it out of that team, I actually agree with Glenn (Hoddle) about Firmino there’s a lot of stuff that goes unnoticed with Firmino, but I think if you take Mane out of the team there are players who can go into that team,” said Sidwell ahead of Liverpool v Arsenal on BT Sport’s Early Kick-Off as seen in a clip on BT’s website.
“If you take Van Dijk out, what happens to that team?”
After all ahead of the 2019/20, since scoring for Liverpool on the opening day of the 2017/18 season, Mane has made 110 competitive appearances for club and country, as per Sky Sports.
Despite his recently packed schedule, including his busy summer with Senegal, Jurgen Klopp has still opted to use the forward four times this season and this shows how important he is to the Reds.
After all, if the German boss thought he could get away with resting Mane, then he surely would?
It would be to the player’s advantage to be fully rested as normally a player at 100% is more likely to deliver the goods.
Yet while Sidwell’s claim looked bold ahead of the game and surely raised eyebrows given Mane’s early season form, he no doubt feels smug about his remarks given how Mane performed against Arsenal.
While the 27-year-old was on the pitch, he had a very quiet afternoon despite his side steaming to a 3-1 win over the Gunners.
The attacker failed to complete any dribbles during the game, only managed to fire one shot on target and was dispossessed four times (Source: WhoScored).
Klopp eventually ended up subbing Mane in the 77th minute of the match, which was a reflection of the fact he wasn’t truly at the races against the Gunners.
Considering that Mane’s quiet display wasn’t really a factor on Saturday, as players like Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold wowing made it a non-issue, it did show how the Reds can hypothetically cope without him.
This is before you consider that Sidwell thinks the Reds’ squad contains cover for Mane, perhaps hinting at the fact he has faith in fringe players such as Divock Origi or Xherdan Shaqiri.
So with that in mind, you do feel Sidwell will be a little smug about his pre-game claim regarding Mane if someone brings it up again,
