Owen attacks Sadio Mane for his behavior towards Salah
The ex-Liverpool star argues that Liverpool winger Sadio Mane avoids winning penalty kicks as he knows that they will be taken by Salah.
Former Liverpool marksman Michael Owen suggested that Senegalese winger Sadio Mane avoided an opportunity to win a penalty kick against Chelsea because he knew that Mohamed Salah would have been the one to take it.
Owen argues Mane could have won a penalty kick in the first half against Chelsea when he was tackled by Andreas Christensen, but he kept going instead and didn't go to ground to reduce Salah's chances to scoring.
Owen thinks Mane wants to limit Salah's chances of scoring
“I just wonder, and it might be few devious thoughts creeping into my head, Mo Salah is the penalty taker in this team, and if he (Mane) thinks he’s getting a chance to score he thinks ‘well I’m going to score, if I don’t stay on my feet, Mo Salah’s going to get another penalty,” Owen told Optus sport.
Owen also added that this isn't the first time he has noticed Mane doing such a thing, claiming that this behavior might be fueled by the competitive nature of the players who have been competing for individual awards including the golden boot over the past few seasons.
“It might be a wild sort of theory, but the competitive nature of him and Mo Salah...we’ve seen them not passing to each other when one of them is in a much better position than the other. I just think a couple of times there, I’ve seen Mane go down for those kinds of opportunities...and (to not do it) two games on the spin? It just made me think a little bit," said Owen.
Salah now sits top of the Premier League goal scorers chart with 17 goals despite the loss his team endured to Chelsea yesterday which saw the Reds go down for the fifth game in a row at Anfield for the first time in their history.