Leroy Sane has been mentioned as a possible Mohamed Salah replacement by Liverpool, but Theo Squires says that such a trade wouldn’t make sense.
Since the beginning of his first full season at Anfield, Jurgen Klopp has added 36 players to the first team at Liverpool.
This summer, Wataru Endo joined an exclusive roster that also includes Ragnar Klavan, Alex Manninger, Adrian, and Andy Lonergan as the most recent entrant above the age of 30. Also known as a £4.2 million backup centre defender, three backup goalkeepers, two of whom have never played competitively for the club, and a £16 million holding midfielder who was unexpectedly signed after the sale of Fabinho and the failure to sign Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia.
The only other Reds additions beyond the age of 25 were Virgil van Dijk, Xherdan Shaqiri, Thiago Alcantara, and Arthur, and even then, three of them were 26 years old with the Spaniard being the outlier at 29. He is a notable exception to Liverpool’s transfer policy, though, given they paid an initial £20 million for a player of his calibre.
The only 25-year-olds hired so far are Ben Davies, Alisson Becker, Mohamed Salah, and Gini Wijnaldum. With the Reds’ preferred transfer model very much being one of acquiring quality talent that would only get better, the rest weren’t even close to reaching their peak years when they arrived at Anfield.
Endo may have been 30 when he was bought this summer, but the other members of Liverpool’s eagerly anticipated midfield overhaul were the ideal representations of that desired profile, with Alexis Mac Allister being 24 years old, Dominik Szoboszlai being 22, and Ryan Gravenberch being only 21.
Which is why this weekend’s rumours that the Reds have made former Manchester City attacker Leroy Sane their top target to replace Salah will have raised some eyebrows.
The ECHO is aware that it would be against Liverpool’s normal transfer policy to pursue the Bayern Munich forward, who will turn 28 in January. However, it would still be unexpected for the Reds to seek such a signing when the time comes to replace Salah. It is true that interest cannot be completely ruled out given the arrival of Thiago from the Bavarians back in 2020.
The Egyptian, who turned 31 this summer, has a contract with Liverpool through 2025 after last summer agreeing to an enhanced agreement that made him the highest-paid player in the team’s history. In the meantime, Liverpool put up a valiant fight against Al-Ittihad of Saudi Arabia in August.
Salah is in some of the best form of his career right now, with six goals and four assists in just 10 appearances this season. However, there is no guarantee that the Reds’ stance will have changed by the time big-money Middle Eastern interest returns at the end of the season.
Although he will be 32 next summer, he is not showing any signs of slowing down after surpassing the 30-goal mark each of the last three seasons. Therefore, Liverpool won’t be in a rush to replace their talisman as they undertake the trickiest player hunt of Klopp’s time at Anfield.
The Reds replacing Salah with a player who is only four years Salah’s junior would seem counterproductive. Sane may be approaching his own peak, but that would indicate that his ceiling is already in view, necessitating the search for his own replacement in the not-too-distant future.
There is a legitimate argument to be made that Liverpool may have already signed Harvey Elliott, Kaide Gordon, or Ben Doak as Salah’s replacement. If so, a senior profile might actually be advantageous to balance out the young group.
However, a betting man would anticipate similar behaviour at Anfield given that the signings of Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez, and Cody Gakpo were all much more in line with their preferred transfer model when they were looking for replacements for Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino.
Regarding Sane, the Mirror reports that Liverpool is allegedly prepared to “break their club transfer record of £80 million for Darwin Nunez in order to secure the Germany winger.” The initial cost of the Uruguayan was £64 million. Depending on individual achievement, which can range from completing appearance milestones and scoring goals to winning the Champions League, that fee could increase to a maximum £85m with add-ons. Only those involved in the deal will be able to say for sure if the striker’s current output of 19 goals in 52 games has triggered any such clauses, but given that the Reds are currently in the Europa League, it would seem unlikely that the striker was a “£80 million club record signing” as things stand.
Despite that error, it doesn’t fit with Liverpool’s chosen operating model for them to pay over £80 million on a 28-year-old player again.
Sane has had an impressive start to the season with Bayern Munich, scoring seven goals in just nine Bundesliga and Champions League outings. Given that it’s still mid-October, he is therefore on track to provide a career-best scoring return this year.
The German, who was 23 at the time, scored 10 Premier League goals that season, giving Man City’s most recent season a record-high 16 goals. Sane has only ever scored more than 15 goals in a season, and thus far he hasn’t been able to match, much alone top, a 10-goal league season in the Bundesliga.
Granted, it is entirely possible that Sane will break such records this year considering his spectacular start to the season. However, in a different situation at Anfield under Klopp, the German might still be rewarded with more goals scored.
Salah, who has only ever failed to score 25 goals for Liverpool when netting 23 goals in 2019/20, the Reds’ Premier League title-winning season, still outperforms him in terms of lifetime returns. The number of goals he has scored in the English Premier League is still the lowest of his career (19), almost double Sane’s career high.
Salah joined Liverpool in the summer of 2017 and has since scored 192 goals in 315 games. If he hasn’t surpassed that 200-goal mark before 2024, it would be unexpected.
Sane has scored 75 goals in 242 appearances throughout the same span despite missing the most of the 2019–20 season due to an ACL injury. Although he has continued to be extremely available on both ends of that season, he simply cannot match Salah in terms of goals scored. But who in football genuinely can, anyway?
It wouldn’t be shocking if Klopp liked Sane. He attempted to get his countryman back in 2016, but the forward ultimately signed with Man City in exchange for up to £46.5 million from Schalke.
“Yes, I was also talking with them. Jurgen was calling me too, talking to me. That was before I joined City,” Sane confirmed to the Guardian in 2018. “He did a good job at [Borussia] Dortmund – I met him when he was there. He’s a good guy, nice guy – honest. He [has] worked well with Liverpool.”
with the age of 20, Sane had just finished his final season with Schalke, recording nine goals and seven assists in 42 games. He had nine goals and nine assists in his first season at Man City in 2016–17, and over the next two seasons, in 96 games, he would add another 30 goals and 38 assists before suffering an ACL injury.
He was only 22 years old when he received the PFA Young Player of the Year award for the 2017–18 season, which saw City win back-to-back Premier League crowns, League Cups, as well as one FA Cup.
If we’re being honest, that’s the Sane—the 23-year-old forward with the entire world at his disposal—that you want to take Salah’s position. Not the soon-to-be 28-year-old, who hasn’t quite equaled such heights in the interim despite appearing to be enjoying what will prove to be his most successful season to date. He used to be the ideal replacement, but not any longer.
It’s true that there is a pretty clear explanation for this supposed interest in Sane. Such players are hard to come by, as Liverpool discovered when looking for a young holding midfielder who was good, affordable, and available as well as a left-sided center-back.
The same is true of left-footed right-sided strikers, as there are no clear market leaders in this category now that Bukayo Saka has achieved new heights with Arsenal. As a result, Salah would automatically continue to be the most gifted player available if he were to depart next summer.
The most difficult assignment is ahead for Liverpool when it comes to replacing its Egyptian King. The only saving grace in such a search is that the Reds have already found replacements for Mane and Firmino, which appears to be an almost difficult task.
“The way this club is led is by not splashing the money and having a look at if it works out or not,” Klopp said last February. “Our transfers always have to be on point.”
Sane is a skilled player, that much is clear, but does he actually meet the bill? He is already too old, too pricey, and just doesn’t perform well enough to be the ideal substitute, making him only a temporary fix at best.
When the time comes for the Reds to make such a raid, you can’t help but anticipate something more than Sane given how diligently Liverpool’s recruitment team will be working behind the scenes to find the ideal Salah replacement. This transfer will need to be flawless, possibly more so than any other Klopp signing in the past.