Transfer Centre

Lionel Messi 'wants Liverpool's Sadio Mane at Barcelona'

By Barney Corkhill, Editor | 17 March 2019

Barcelona captain Lionel Messi reportedly urges the club's board to sign Sadio Mane from Liverpool after being impressed by his performance against Bayern Munich.

Barcelona captain Lionel Messi has reportedly urged the club's hierarchy to sign Sadio Mane from Liverpool this summer.

Mane has been in scintillating form for Jurgen Klopp's title-chasing Reds recently, with his goal against Fulham on Sunday making it 20 for the season and 11 from his last 11 outings across all competitions.

The Senegalese striker scored twice as Liverpool dumped Bayern Munich out of the Champions League earlier this week too, and that performance is understood to have drawn the attention of Barcelona.

Don Balon claims that Messi has identified Mane as a player who could increase Barcelona's pace in attack as they look for an alternative to the misfiring Philippe Coutinho.

Barcelona's board are understood to regard Mane in the same bracket as Samuel Eto'o, who scored 130 goals in 199 games for the club from 2004 to 2009.

However, any move for the Liverpool man would be complicated by a clause in the contract which took Coutinho from Anfield to Camp Nou last year.

As part of that deal, Liverpool stipulated that Barcelona would have to pay an additional €100m (£89m) if they signed any more of their players before 2020.

The report claims that the Spanish giants have not completely ruled out the possibility of paying that penalty, but are more likely to wait until next year before making their move.