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Jamie Carragher thinks Sadio Mané is the club’s best ever left
winger. John Barnes wants a bit more time—and has some other
favourites.
Liverpool have won the Champions
League, Super Cup, Club World Cup, and Premier League over the past two
seasons. They’re one of the top three club sides in Europe at the
moment and look a solid bet to retain their league crown.
As you might expect for a side like that, they’ve got some of
the best players in the game. Players who would walk into any other
side. World class talent at every position.
Sometimes it might be easy to overlook it, or take it for
granted, but this side has players in it who will deservedly go
down as some of the best who have ever played for Liverpool
Football Club—or at least that have the potential to be remembered
that way.
“We loved John Barnes and he has always been in Liverpool’s best
ever XI, wide left,” noted former Red and current Sky pundit Jamie
Carragher on the weekend. “But I think when Mane finishes he’s
going to be really pushing John Barnes for that position.”
Given Barnes’ time at the club spanned both the last of old
First Division years and the start of the Premier League, there’s a
solid case to be made that if you only look at the latter that
title is already’s Mané’s.
On the opposite wing, Mohamed Salah deserves similar consideration,
while Jordan Henderson
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Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker are the consensus best centre
half and goalkeeper in football today.
And that’s without even getting into rising star and local lad
Trent Alexander-Arnold or fellow fullback Andy Robertson.
The man Carragher has Mané bumping off Liverpool’s all-time
team, though, is sounding a slight of caution—not over the quality
of the Senegalese star or any of the other current Liverpool stars.
Rather over tenure.
“Mane has been fantastic,” Barnes noted. “What he’s done in the
time he’s been here has been absolutely sensational. But, as we saw
with Fernandes Torres and Luis Suarez, if he leaves this season
after being here for four years, you can’t compare them.
“If they stay there over time, then you can compare him
to any great player from the past. Mané has been great. All three
of them have been great, Salah as well and, for me, Firmino still
is my favourite.”
It’s a fair note of caution; a fair caveat. Win another major
piece of silverware this season, though—win another Champions
League or Premier League—and it might be time to stop the caution
and the caveats.