Mane is truly a Barnes stormer
IF this fresh Mersey afternoon will always be about Mo Salah and another remarkable goalscoring achievement, then another milestone was quietly reached, to announce another arrival among the greats.
Salah is that, without doubt. In becoming only the 10th player to score 150 goals in Liverpool history, he has joined the pantheon of immortals.
Yet, if it is greats we are talking about, then another member of this famous Jurgen Klopp forward line deserves similar recognition.
Ask virtually anyone from the red side of this city, who is the greatest left winger in Liverpool history, and they’ll reply John Barnes, a player who changed the game, on and off the pitch.
Barnes scored 108 goals for the club in 407 appearances, to elevate the No.10 shirt, and own it.
Yet here, on a wild, wintry day, Sadio Mane made that famous No.10 his own too. He didn’t just produce a truly stunning goal to bring Liverpool back into this contest with Norwich – and into a title race that seemed to be briefly slipping away – he also wrote a little piece of history.
That vital goal happens to be his 108th for the Reds, the same as Barnes. But he has produced them in 248 matches... 159 games fewer than Barnes.
He is now the joint-16th highest goalscorer in the club’s history, just six places behind Salah on the all-time list.
There is no question now that Mane (above) is the equal of the legendary Barnes. His energy, pace and mesmerising dribbling are all reminiscent.
He scores such important goals too. Like Barnes, he is a game-changer, a match-winner.
A player who strikes fear into opponents, and one his team-mates talk about in hushed tones.
The greats do, too. Listen to
Ian Rush, Robbie Fowler, Barnes himself, and they all say he is just as important to Liverpool as Salah.
Salah is actually the Rush of his generation, consistently topping the scoring charts, consistently breaking records.
And Rush will always say that he was a better player because of Barnes and, before that, Kenny Dalglish, of course.
Which is why recent talk of Mane leaving Liverpool, of Luis Diaz being signed as his replacement, is nonsense.
We saw here, as Norwich produced a shock lead, who the big players are. Which ones stood up. Mane’s overhead kick levelled the scores as things got frantic, as unrest set in on the terraces. It was a thing of beauty, the sign of a master. Something Barnes would be proud of.
He has scored more goals for Liverpool than Luis Suarez, Fernando Torres, Kevin Keegan, John Toshack and Albert Stubbins. Than Roberto Firmino, too.
Would Salah be as effective a scorer without him? Of course not. The two go together as Rush and Barnes did. They deserve to be recognised in similar reverential tones.
Klopp had just one word for Mane’s goal: “Wow.” And of Salah he said: “His first touch was insane today!”
It was and produced that stunning goal where he dumped Angus Gunn on his backside, before rolling the ball in.
It means Salah is secondfastest to 150 goals in Liverpool history, behind only Roger Hunt, who reached the milestone in 226 games, to Salah’s 233.
But Salah’s goals-per-game ratio is better than even Hunt over his Anfield career – better than any Reds striker in history, at 1.55 games per goal. The best ever? Quite possibly. And the same should be said of Mane.
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Like Barnes, Mane is a match-winner who strikes fear into opponents and his teammates talk about him in hushed tones.