Liverpool have had some amazing attacking players over the years.
The likes of Luis Suarez, Daniel Sturridge, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane are all fondly remembered at Anfield and get a lot of praise for their ability among the Liverpool fanbase.
However, there’s another attacker from that era who has to also be considered a Premier League great – Raheem Sterling.
The winger, of course, spent the first portion of his career at Liverpool, and while he isn’t necessarily a fan favourite on Merseyside these days, he has to be considered one of the better players to play at Anfield over the past 10 years or so.
Speaking on the BBC Match of the Day Top 10 Podcast, Gary Lineker has even gone as far as to say that Sterling is as good as Sadio Mane was for Liverpool, claiming that there was not much between the pair.
Sterling as good as Mane
Lineker had a discussion about the two attackers alongside Micah Richards.
“Ok, so to ask you this. Who is better, Mane or Sterling? See, a lot of people would go with Mane straight away, but Sterling has been doing it for a long time in the Premier League,” Richards said.
“I wouldn’t have that much between them. I genuinely wouldn’t. There’s not much between them, that’s difficult isn’t it,” Lineker said.
This is a really tough debate.
Liverpool fans would probably pick Mane due to the way Sterling left the club in 2015, but, at the same time, Sterling has been so consistent over the years since leaving Anfield.
At Manchester City, the winger was good for 20 goals a season every season, and while you could say the same about Mane, their statistics were comparable.
For us, Mane is just that bit better because of what he brought to the Liverpool team, but in another world, that famous front three would be Sterling-Firmino-Salah rather than Mane-Firmino-Salah.
