Sadio Mane return deemed unlikely amid contract offer claim from journalist

Sadio Mane is highly unlikely to return to Liverpool despite a poor first season at Bayern Munich, according to the latest reports.

The former Liverpool forward left in a deal worth up to £35m last summer after six trophy-laden years on Merseyside.

However, his move to the German champions hasn’t been as successful as many predicted; even despite the fact he’s managed 11 goals and five assists in nearly 2,000 minutes of action across all competitions.

According to Neil Jones at GOAL, Liverpool sources have offered little encouragement to speculation that Mane could return to the club just one year after exiting for Bayern.

Speculation had arisen following the reports last week that Mane and Leroy Sane had been involved in a physical altercation, an incident that saw Mane be very publicly criticised and fined £250k as a result.

Furthermore, Jones claims that Liverpool are not planning on recruiting another first-team forward, which makes sense given Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo arrived this season, bolstering their already stacked front-line.

Mane left Liverpool after it was revealed that club didn’t want to offer him a similar contract to the one they agreed with Mohamed Salah - with the Egyptian earning a deal around £400k-a-week.

The report also states that there is an element of truth to Mane feeling undervalued while at Liverpool and the feeling is that had he been offered a contract similar to the one given to Salah, he would have “signed it in a flash.”

But Liverpool were wary of breaking their wage structure, even for Salah, and didn’t have the financial resources to offer it to a clearly-declining Mane.

Even without mane, Liverpool’s attacking options boast the likes of Diogo Jota, Luis Diaz, Nunez, Gakpo and Salah, as well as Fabio Carvalho and Roberto Firmino. However, Firmino is set to leave on a free this summer and Carvalho has barely featured since the World Cup.

Furthermore, the focus will most likely be on midfield recruitment this summer, with Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Arthur Melo (and potentially James Milner) all set to depart, which is certainly a much more pressing issue.

Whereas some fans may want to see a fan-favourite like Mane return, it seems highly unlikely from whichever angle you look from.