Liverpool's loss is Bayern Munich's gain as Sadio Mane hits ground running in Bundesliga

A penny for the thoughts of Sadio Mane, as he watched, from the flat he shares with a colleague while house-hunting in Bavaria, the events at Old Trafford on Monday.

The last time he played in a Liverpool-United fixture, he brilliantly set up one goal and scored another in a 4-0 victory. That was only in April, recent enough for his absence from Merseyside to be felt poignantly on a night United comfortably beat Liverpool.

The day before United’s galvanising 2-1 win, Bayern Munich had played Bochum, who like United, spent the weekend at the bottom of their division. It turned into quite a rout, although Bayern’s 7-0 triumph was only by a small margin their biggest win of the short season so far.

They have racked up 15 goals in the opening three league games, 20 in their four competitive matches of 2022/23. Mane already has a handsome stake in this exhibition of firepower. He is averaging better than a goal every 90 minutes for the club he joined from Liverpool in June.

Mane’s move, for a little over €35 million, was one he sought, wanting a fresh challenge and leaving, without rancour, a club where he was loved and respected. He is only 30 and among the top five candidates for this year’s Ballon d’Or.

The destination made sense, with Bayern preparing to say farewell to Robert Lewandowski, Mane looking for a club with Champions League-winning ambitions and geared to the sort of attacking energy he was used to at Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.

Scan the data and Bayern and Liverpool mirror one another in their aggression: So far this term, Liverpool have commanded possession in their league outings – 70 per cent on average per game – and their appetite for goals, with an average of over 17 shots per match. Bayern’s tendency is