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Yaya Toure has revealed that he asked Manchester City to sign Sadio Mane before Liverpool, having been impressed by what he saw from the Senegal star at former club Southampton.
Southampton spent the best part of £12m to bring Mane to the Premier League from Red Bull Salzburg, where he had scored 45 goals in just over two seasons.
It was a golden Saints side that also featured the likes of Graziano Pelle, Jose Fonte, Victor Wanyama, Dusan Tadic, a young James Ward-Prowse and then later also Virgil van Dijk and Oriol Romeu that went on to finish seventh and sixth in successive Premier League seasons.
Mane personally netted 10 and then 11 league goals, with the latter tally including a record quick hat-trick against Aston Villa in 2015 scored in just 176 seconds.
In 2016, the winger was Liverpool’s first major signing under Jurgen Klopp at £34m, going on to help the club win the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup and forming one third of a deadly front three alongside Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino.
But Toure appears to have suggested that Manchester City, who signed Raheem Sterling in 2015, and Nolito and Leroy Sane in 2016, all in wide forward roles, had the opportunity to get there quicker.
“I always wanted to play with him [Mane]. When I was at City, at the time when he was at Southampton, I highly regarded him and I was asking some of my superiors to just sign him. But in the end it just didn’t happen,” Toure said.
“After that Klopp had the eyes to get him and now look what he did for Liverpool, he was brilliant. I like him, I like him as a player.”
Manchester United had made an attempt to sign Mane in 2015 after his debut season at Southampton when Louis van Gaal was in charge at Old Trafford. United went on to sign Anthony Martial soon after, but were back in for Mane in 2016 and nearly signed him.
“I was really, really close because I even met up with [United],” Mane later revealed.
“So I was coming, I was there and I spoke with the boss who was there before [Van Gaal]. “They made an offer, but in the same week, Klopp called me. He said: ‘I think it’s the right club. The right coach for you, and I think it’s better that you go to Liverpool’.”
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