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It is becoming increasingly difficult for Liverpool to maintain the worst-kept secret in football: Sadio Mané is one of the best players in the world.

Mané shared his first-ever Golden Boot for the previous Premier League campaign with fellow Africans Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Mohamed Salah. The trio all notched 22 goals during the campaign, although many have pointed out that Mané's achievement stands out from the rest as his total was unaided with penalties, while Salah converted three and Aubameyang scored four.

Mané recently finished in fifth place in ‘The Best FIFA Men's Player’ awards. The eventual winner, Lionel Messi, voted for the Senegalese international as his #1. Cesc Fàbregas also recently took to Twitter, to state that Mané is one of the ‘top 3 players in the world and has been for a while’.

Meanwhile, in Madrid, Eden Hazard’s lacklustre start to life in the Spanish capital has seen reports resurface that Liverpool’s #10 was Zinedine Zidane’s actual top transfer target in the summer. Mané was wanted to rebuild an ageing Real Madrid and provide some much-needed energy and pace to their forward line.

On the back of winning a major trophy, it seems Mané is finally receiving universal praise and recognition for his talent. However, this is far removed from sentiments when Liverpool were in the process of signing him just three summers ago.

At the time, opinions on the £30million ($38.5million) man considered him to be an over-priced Theo Walcott, no better than Jon Walters, and seemingly a shoo-in before even kicking a ball in red for ‘flop of the season’.

While such takes look absolutely laughable now, it does raise an interesting question: Were such people just blind to the obvious, likely due to the many cognitive biases which impair human judgement? Also, to what extent has Mané evolved to become a world-class footballer under the tutelage of Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool?

(Image: Craque Stats)

The image above shows the shot density map for Mané’s first season in English football, in 2014/15, with Southampton. It only reflects his efforts from open play, as this better reflects shot choice and positions taken than set-pieces.

As can be seen, he had a tendency to take shots from anywhere. Ideally, there would be fewer shots from wide angles and long distances as possible, but Mané's attempts fitted this criteria.

Despite that, his shooting metrics are still very impressive. If we consider the elite goalscorers in Europe last season as being those who scored at least ten non-penalty goals in one of the top-five European Leagues, this group of 61 forwards average:

At 22 and playing predominantly as a wide forward, Mané’s underlying numbers suggest he was already an elite finisher with a lot of potential for growth given his age and erratic shot map.

- 23.2% of their shots being blocked

- 43.1% of their shots being on target (SoT %)

- 40.5% of those shots on target being converted (SoT Conv. %)

- 47.0% of their big chances being converted (BC Conv. %)

- 0.37 expected goals per 90 (xG)

- 0.40 goals per 90

(Image: Craque Stats)

Moving forward two years, to the end of his debut season for Liverpool in 2016/17, there was a clear evolution in his shot locations. It now appears in a nice funnel shape, extending outwards from goal. The low-probability density clusters - both from wide angles and outside the box - are almost entirely gone.

Most of his underlying metrics have subsequently improved. While slightly more shots are being blocked, he is achieving a higher percentage of his shots on target. Those shots on target are being converted at a rate of almost 12% above average. However, he only has 11 non-penalty goals as reward. That number is enough to have him amongst the top ten goalscorers in the league, but still a long way off world-class end product. He is clearly on the right path 24 years old, which is the start of footballers’ ‘peak’ physical years, during which they typically have the most productive years.

(Image: Craque Stats)

Another two year leap, this time to the 2018/19 campaign, revels last season's shot map; it shows an exceptional evolution into a ruthless finisher, with shots in a very tight central cluster in front of goal, and a greater number of shots from point-blank range inside the six-yard box.

The reward for the evolution of his shot process is made clear by the numbers, as he clocks in 21 goals from open play. He is outperforming the averages for an elite forward by roughly 10% in SoT% (shots on target), SoT Conv % (shots on target conversion) and BC Conv % (big chance conversion). Mane’s big chance total has risen from ten in 2016/17 to 23, taking up better goal scoring positions, and being closer and more central to the goal.

Perhaps the clearest indication of this refining process is in the average xG per shot, which essentially tells us the probability of him scoring on average from every shot he takes. This metric has grown from 0.15 after his first season at Southampton in 2014/15, to 0.18 after his first season with the Reds in 2016/17. Now, it is at 0.20, having completed his evolution into a 20-goal-a-season forward and Golden Boot winner.

Mané was averaging 6.0 shots per goal in open play in his first Southampton season. He only required 3.6 shots per goal in the last season, achieving an improvement of 65.8%.

(Image: Craque Stats)

Analysing his underlying numbers for each of his five full seasons in English football side-by-side, one thing that stands out is the amount of football he was able to play last season. Since his arrival at Liverpool, Mané’s seasons have been interrupted by the African Cup of Nations, suspension and at least one injury per season. An uninterrupted 2018/19 saw him play nearly ten full games extra in terms of minutes.

On reflection, it appears many people were sleeping on Mané back when Liverpool signed him. He was the first player signed in the Klopp era at Anfield for more than £6million. In many ways, this makes him an era-defining signing for Klopp’s Reds.

It is also the deal that finally put some respect on the name of sporting director, Michael Edwards. A hatchet job written in some areas of the press, shortly after Rodgers was sacked, saw his stock fall to an all-time low with a large section of the club’s fanbase. Today, Edwards and his team are now considered to be the pioneers of using analytics in top-level football to scout and acquire players, and the blueprint many clubs wish to emulate.

The ability to see impressive underlying numbers, as well as a clear path to pushing them from elite to world-class, is becoming a recurring theme at Anfield with Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Alisson Becker and now Mané receiving recognition as being amongst the very best in the world. Perhaps by the end of the season, the likes of Andy Robertson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho and Roberto Firmino will all be held in similar esteem on the back of another major trophy – or two.

All data and graphics used in this article are provided by @CraqueStats

Notes on metrics used in the article:

P90 – Per 90’s played. This is all minutes played divided per 90 mins, so whilst a player can be listed with 30 appearances if he only plays 10 mins in each game this would show as 300/90 = 3.33 (ie the equivalent of 3.3 games)

xG - Expected Goals. In layman’s terms, xG is the probability that a shot results in a goal. This calculation is based on numerous in-game variables with pitch location being the most influential. For example, a tap-in from a yard out could result in an xG of 0.95: in other words, 95 times out of a 100 it results in a goal. These individual shot probabilities are often aggregated for an overall assessment.

NP – Non-Penalty. Penalties are often removed in analytics as they are rare, high scoring probability events that can skew analysis.

OP - Open Play, ie. excludes penalties, corners, free-kicks etc.

SoT - Shots on Target.

SoT% – percentage of all shots that are on target

SoT Conv % - percentage of all SoT that result in goals