Sadio Mane has revealed he turned down Manchester United once Jurgen Klopp came calling and made it known he wanted the Senegal star to sign for Liverpool.
Mane made a £34m move to Anfield from Southampton in the summer of 2016 and has gone to have a huge influence on the side Reds boss Klopp has built.
But the forward has admitted to former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher that he had a contract agreed with bitter rivals United before Klopp, who had tried to sign him previously when he was in charge of Borussia Dortmund, picked up the phone.
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“I have to say, I was really close to going to Manchester United (laughs),” said Mane to Carragher in a Telegraph exclusive.. “I had the contract there. I had it all agreed. It was all ready, but instead I thought, ‘No, I want to go to Liverpool’. I was convinced to go with Klopp’s project. I still remember the first time I got the call from Klopp.
“I was watching TV. It was an action movie - because I love movies - and he said, ‘Sadio, listen, I want to explain to you what happened at Dortmund’. That was when he thought of signing me for Dortmund and for some reason it didn’t work out. He tried to explain and I said, ‘it’s okay, it happened’. I forgave him. Then he said, ‘now I want you at Liverpool’. And I said, ‘Okay, Dortmund is behind us, let’s focus on the future’.
“He said, ‘We have a big project at Liverpool and I want you to be part of it’. Then he asked what position I wanted, because he could see at Southampton I played on the right side and I used to play on the left. I said I prefer left, and then he said, ‘but Coutinho is on the left!’ So I said, never mind, I will play on the right. I could see myself in all the positions.”
Mane is looking to make his time at Anfield even more memorable by adding a second Champions League to his already impressive collection of trophies when Liverpool face Real Madrid in the final on Saturday.
