In an interview with BBC Radio 5Live, Andy Robertson made a ‘gutted’ Sadio Mané admission but declared the three players that will replace him in the future.
Andy Robertson insists that while he was ‘gutted’ that Sadio Mané left last summer for Bayern Munich, Liverpool doesn’t necessarily miss him, and it already has the players to replace him.
Mané was instrumental in his time at Liverpool, and many have speculated that part of the Reds’ downfall this season has been due to his departure for Germany last summer.
This isn’t something Robertson, who shared the same side of the pitch as Mané for years, subscribes to. In an interview with BBC 5 Live, Robertson discussed his relationship with Mané and whether Liverpool does indeed miss him.
“To be honest, no,” Robertson said, via the Daily Mail. “Don’t get me wrong, I had a fantastic relationship with Sadio in terms of me and him down the left-hand side for five years. He was a joy to play with, every game.
“I loved playing with him, we linked really well. He helped me going back, the way I helped him going forward. And yeah we linked up really well. When he left, there was probably no one more gutted than me because of the relationship we had.
But we’ve got fantastic players that can play in their positions. We brought in Darwin [Núñez], who has been really good to start. We’ve got Luis Díaz who has obviously been injured and re-injured and things like that, which is difficult. Jots [Diogo Jota] can play there, who’s got injured.”
Sadio Mané and Andy Robertson played together at Liverpool for five years. (Image: Photo by John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
While Jota hasn’t really shown recently that he can be as effective on the left, Núñez and Díaz have proven they can. And eventually, they will push the shadow of Mané into the background for good.
Robertson and Mané played together at Liverpool for five years but the time was right to move on for the latter. In time, the lazy narrative that he is missed will be set to one side.
Núñez is now really starting to settle and Gakpo will be much better come next season. Replacing Mané was never going to be easy, but there are more themes to Liverpool’s struggle this season than his departure
