Bayern Chief on Mané Struggles: “Sadio Still Needs a Little Time”

For Liverpool and their fans, much of the talk around the club’s struggles to start the 2022-23 season has focused on the departure over the summer of Sadio Mané, with many asking if the 30-year-old’s departure is at the root of their issues.

While Mané leaving and new signing Darwin Nuñez’ lack of goals so far has dominated on the English side, in Germany there’s a similar discussion taking place around Bayern Munich—and new signing Sadio Mané, who has so far received lukewarm reviews.

“Sadio still needs a little time,” was Bayern sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic’s response when asked this week about the ex-Liverpool star’s relative lack of impact since arriving. “He has to get used to the Bundesliga, too, but he will.

“I know what it’s like to arrive to a new a team, in a different country, with a slightly different football culture, but everything will be more familiar to him soon and we will see that on the pitch. He is one of the best players in the world, we will have a lot of joy.”

So far, Mané has five goals and no assists in 11 appearances for his new club, with a goal involvement every 160 minutes. It’s not a terrible return, but it’s not great, either—and Mané hasn’t score in the last four league games for the Bavarians.

In the meantime, Bayern—who have won the league ten times in a row and were expected to similarly romp to number eleven—are off to an uncharacteristically slow start with three wins, three draws, and a loss leaving them in fifth after seven rounds.

Despite that, they’re only five points off current leaders Union Berlin and three back of second-place Borussia Dortmund, and few will really expect this edition of the Bundesliga to end any different than the last ten at the end of the day.