Sadio Mané Completes Liverpool Medical

After agreeing a transfer fee with Southampton yesterday, 24-year-old attacker Sadio Mané was in Liverpool today to undergo his medical and was spotted giving the thumbs up as he left Spire Hospital following its completion.

With that now out of the way, Mané is expected to complete his move and then be officially announced as the club’s newest signing within the next 24 hours. The fee Liverpool will pay for his signing is being reported as anywhere between £25M up front with a further £5M in add-ons to £30M up front with a further £6M in add-ons.

Either way, the fee is high, yet the influx of television money in the Premier League and transfer fee inflation cannot be overlooked. Even just three years ago, Mané likely would have cost around £10M less, and for those who still haven’t caught up, intuitively, with the current market, that may be a better way to look at his fee.

And however one does look at it, it’s clear Liverpool are getting a player that on paper appears the perfect fir for Jürgen Klopp’s high pressing system, a player that the Liverpool manager has been tracking since his days at RB Salzburg, when he was the Austrian Bundesliga’s top young attacking player.

After spending two seasons in Austria registering a goal or assist every 92 minutes, last year at Southampton, Mané’s numbers compared favourably to Liverpool players Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino, Bayern Munich’s Mario Götze and Douglas Costa, and Manchester City’s £55M signing Kevin de Bruyne.