Sadio Mane May Stay If Saints Qualify For The Champions League Wednesday, 24th Feb 2016 09:19 Once again the media are linking Sadio Mane with a move to Manchester, however Saints may have a ace up their sleeve, Mane is being reported as willing to stay if the club make the Champions League next season. Back in August when Sadio Mane was linked with Manchester United I said that this was nothing more than a smokescreen put up by Old Trafford CEO Ed Woodward to deflect criticism away from him after losing Pedro to Chelsea. There was no bid for Mane back then and despite a solid four months of media speculation claiming Mane would move to United in January, there were no serious attempts by the club to snatch the player from Saints grasp. Despite these facts once the transfer window closed linking Mane with not just United but cross town rivals Manchester City started up again once the transfer window was closed. Now the biggest drawback for those rumours is that it is likely that not only City who have already confirmed their new manager for 2016/17, but United will have a new manager in place. Therefore at this early stage it would be strange if either club were chasing Sadio Mane. So who is fuelling these stories in the press, since the original media "leak" by Woodward back in August, neither club seem to have shown any interest in Mane, so assuming that it is not Saints themselves trying to peddle him to the highest bidder, then you can only assume that the source of the stories is someone close to Mane, probably his agent. In truth Mane appears to have handled himself well in this period, unlike Wanyama he has not sulked and declined to play, yes there have been a couple incidents of him missing team meetings, but this is in line with the player's own laid back demeanor, it could be something more sinister, but the reality is that some of today's players have a lets say relaxed attitude to their personal schedules. The latest story coming out, this time starting from the Mirror, but then taken up by other media outlets is that Mane would be open to staying should Saints qualify for the Champions League ! I must admit I had to laugh out loud at this one, at present Mane's form this season is nothing to write home about, yes there have been the odd game where he has shown his class, Arsenal at home being one notable occasion, but apart from that he has produced far too little, indeed at Old Trafford in front of his alleged suitors, he made some promising runs, but then showed the finishing touches of Bambi On Ice when he had the opportunities to score, I cannot say that would have upped his standing much in the corridors of power in Old Trafford. To say Mane has had a good season would not be totally untrue, but he has not had much better than average in most of it. There are some who would say that last season was not much different, even without the distraction of transfer rumours, up until his three goal blast against Villa, his profile was not very high outside of a SO Postcode, indeed Saints supporters were split as to whether the club had wasted their money on signing him fro Red Bull Salzburg, it was only that hat trick that made his goal tally look respectable. Meanwhile he cannot get into the starting line up at Saints at the moment, Shane Long has rightly overtaken him in the pecking order of late and with the arrival of Charlie Austin and the return to training of Jay Rodriguez this week he is going to have a lot more competition for a place. On his day he can be a scintillating player, but too often his day does not coincide when Saints are actually playing, put bluntly these days football clubs look a lot at stats as well as watching a player in action, United had a birds eye view of his form at Old Trafford last month, it showed a player with plenty of pace but too often unable to deliver specially in front of goal, his stats do not set the World alight and both United and City expect a lot more from a player than he is currently producing at Southampton. Neither club after their failure to win the title last season and seemingly this, can afford another misfiring big money signing, both will go for a striker with a proven track record at this level and that is not Sadio Mane. Sadio Mane undoubtably has the ability to light up and change a game, but that ability has not been seen with anything like enough regularity to warrant a £30 million bid for his services, f we got that we should snatch the hands off of those offering, at the moment Mane's value is little more than what we paid for him, the going rate for a 10 goal a season striker is around the £10- 12 million mark, Mane scored 10 last season and now needs to average above a goal every two games to even match that total this season Without these rumours keeping him in the public eye, Sadio Mane would be just another player in the Premier League, few supporters of other club's would be that aware of him or his abilities and this perhaps tells us why these rumours are emerging and where they are coming from, Sadio Mane's agent is certainly hitting the target with a lot more consistency than his client judging by the amount of media attention Mane s getting. Comparisons can be drawn with Saido Berahino at West Bromwich Albion, like Mane he was a target for a so called big club, in this case Tottenham Hotspur, his season like Mane's was disrupted, funnily enough Berahino's loss of form has not coincided with the top club's in the Premier League being tipped to fight a bidding war for him, but his form is not far different from Mane's, he two has scored a paltry 3 Premier League goals, like Mane the last of these was back in October. However he has started only 9 Premier League games compared to Mane's 22, most of Berahino's appearances have been off the bench, his goals per minutes on the pitch ratio is far far better than Mane's, yet he considered to be a talent going to waste and Mane is being touted as possibly the highest summer transfer fee between two Premier League clubs in three months time. This is why I take the Sadio Mane £30 million to Manchester United or City to be nothing more than close season speculation at a time when there is little to talk about. Of course Sadio Mane will stay if Saints qualify for the Champions League, to be blunt on his current form he is going nowhere anyway, final word to the Manchester Evening News who showed that arrogance amongst Manchester football people is not just confined to the supporters. "United might be poor and City are wobbling, but there is more chance of Van Gaal winning a trophy than Ronald Koeman's side finishing above both Manchester clubs." They might be right ! but the fact that it could even be considered happening shows how right Ronald Koeman and Saints have got their strategy with limited resources and how wrong both City and united have got it recently with all their big money signings and managerial changes. 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