If Sadio Mane leaves Liverpool as looks likely, his consistency in front of goal is not going to be easy to replace. He has averaged 20 goals per season in all competitions for the Reds, and in 2021/22 became the first player to score 10+ times in the Premier League in each of the last eight campaigns (though Harry Kane later achieved this feat too).
While goal volume is obviously the most vital measure of a striker, being able to score in important moments is crucial too. With his goal at Villarreal, Mane became the top scoring African in the Champions League’s knockout phase, with 15 goals, and only Karim Benzema (with 17) has accumulated more across the last five seasons.
The Senegalese forward’s strike at the Estadio de la Ceramica was also notable as it proved to be the winner in Liverpool’s 3-2 victory. When it comes to scoring decisive goals such as these, Mane has few equals.
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During Jurgen Klopp’s time in England, his side have won 60 league matches by a single goal. Unsurprisingly, the long-standing front three of Mane, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah have been responsible for the bulk of these decisive goals (which can be the winner in the true sense, or the goal which seals the win even if the opposition later reduce the final deficit to one).
But while Salah has nine and Firmino has 10, Mane has 11 of these vital league goals. He marked his debut with just such a strike in a thrilling 4-3 victory at Arsenal, and did likewise in what looks set to be his penultimate league appearance for Liverpool, a 2-1 win against Aston Villa.
The nine in between included a derby winner at Goodison Park and a stoppage time clincher at Villa Park in what was one of the key results of the Reds title charge in 2019/20. Throw in his decisive goal against Manchester City at Wembley in April and Mane’s collection glows ever brighter.
His knack of being the man for the big moment will not be easy to replace should his time with Liverpool be at an end. However, in Darwin Nunez, the Reds are on the brink of securing a player who looks to be just as effective when a match needs to be won.
To compare across leagues, we will refer to Transfermarkt. They use a slightly different definition for their Game Winning Goal metric though. As well as true winners and decisive strikes in one goal victories, they also include the goal which secured the result. For instance, say a team scores four times uncontested but the opposition then grabs a late consolation, the second goal is deemed the winner in what became a 4-1 result as far as Transfermarkt are concerned.
By this measure, Mane has accumulated 35 winning goals for Liverpool, which puts him eight shy of Salah’s total. It’s interesting that the former Southampton man has just completed his best campaign on this front though, with five in the league, three in Europe and one in the FA Cup.
Salah might not have bettered Mane’s tally in all competitions, but he was the joint-top scorer of winning goals in the Premier League (alongside Cristiano Ronaldo ) with seven. Only seven players across France, Germany, Italy and Spain got more this season.
There were also two players in Portugal with more Transfermarkt-defined winners than Salah, and Nunez was one of them. The Uruguayan scored nine in the Primeira Liga and proved decisive against Barcelona and Ajax in the Champions League too.
In total, Nunez has scored 15 game winners in 84 appearances for Benfica, a rate of one every 5.6 matches. This puts him ahead of Salah (5.9) and Mane (7.7) for the Reds, albeit they have obviously performed over a much longer period.
And, of course, the goals are shared around among the forwards at Liverpool to some extent when Nunez has very much been his side’s main man this season. His record suggests he can replicate arguably Mane’s greatest strength should the two players make transfer moves as expected this summer though.
