How much did losing Sadio Mané to Bayern Munich destroy Liverpool’s chemistry?

As Manchester City runs wild in the Premier League, there does look like anyone will step up to be a serious contender to Pep Guardiola’s baby blue juggernaut.

To some fans and pundits, Liverpool became less serious of a threat the second that Sadio Mané left for Bayern Munich. Virgil van Dijk, however, does not think that is the case.

“That’s funny, but I don’t think it’s that personally. Obviously Sadio was a massive player for us, but he wanted to leave, it’s not that we wanted to let him go. We have players that have come in. Luis Diaz, outstanding. Darwin (Nunez) is getting to know how we really want to defend from the front and the importance of when we have the ball and when we don’t have the ball,” Van Dijk told Jamie Redknapp Sky Sports (as captured by This is Anfield). “It takes a bit of time in this case, but I don’t think that’s the exact reason why we are not performing.”

In the end, however, Van Dijk thinks Liverpool will turns things around even it if is very difficult to pinpoint an exact reason the squad has slipped so much at the start of this season.

“Difficult start. It’s difficult to find a direct reason for it. It could be multiple things, but I have no idea exactly why, and there is no point for us to think about why those games didn’t go as well as we wanted. We want to improve it now, and in order to do that we have to work each and every day in training, and fight for each yard in the games, and try to win them,” said Van Dijk. “That’s what we try to do, and I feel and I still think that we are going to be there, because we have the quality of players. We’ll keep working, we’ll keep improving, and hopefully we can turn it around.”

Mané’s own start in Bavaria has been a bit mercurial, but it would be hard to argue that the Senegalese attacker anything less than a threat every time he is on the pitch. The veteran’s darting runs and nose for the goal have been a positive for the Bavarians and are like a big part of what is missing in Liverpool these days.