Sadio Mane: Liverpool forward isolating after positive coronavirus test
The forward, who scored days earlier against Arsenal, will miss Liverpool's trip to Aston Villa after becoming the second player in the squad to test positive that week.
Liverpool forward Sadio Mane tested positive for coronavirus and is self-isolating, the club said Saturday, October 3, 2020, according to Sky Sports. Mane will miss Liverpool's Premier League trip to Aston Villa the following day.
"Sadio Mane has tested positive for Covid-19 and is currently self-isolating according to the necessary guidelines. The forward, who started and scored in Monday's 3-1 victory over Arsenal, has displayed minor symptoms of the virus but feels in good health overall," Liverpool said in a statement, per Sky Sports.
A second case in the squad
Mane's positive test came three days after teammate Thiago Alcantara also tested positive for coronavirus and missed the Arsenal match, Sky Sports reported. Manager Jurgen Klopp had hoped to have both players available for the Merseyside derby against Everton on October 17, following the international break, per the same report. Thiago had joined Liverpool from Bayern Munich only weeks earlier, making his debut off the bench in a 2-0 win over Chelsea that opened Liverpool's Premier League title defense, according to reporting on the transfer; Klopp said after Thiago's positive test that the midfielder was "likely to return to action" once the international break had passed, telling reporters, "After the international break he will be fine, for sure."
The wider disruption
Mane's isolation also affected his international availability, ruling him out of Senegal's scheduled friendly matches against Morocco and Mauritania, according to Sky Sports. CBS Sports reported that Mane was required to self-isolate for 10 days under the guidelines in place at the time, which would keep him out past the Aston Villa fixture regardless of symptoms and put his availability for the October 17 Everton derby in question depending on when his isolation period was cleared.
A wider Premier League surge
Mane and Thiago's cases came amid a broader spike in positive tests across the Premier League that week. CBS Sports reported that 10 other positive results were returned across the league on the Monday before Mane's case was announced, which the outlet described as the highest number of cases in a single round since the 2020-21 season began. The source reporting reviewed for this account does not detail specific league-wide postponement protocols beyond individual clubs' isolation requirements, nor does it specify when either Mane or Thiago returned to full training.
The match Mane missed
Liverpool went into the Aston Villa fixture without Mane or Thiago and lost 7-2, according to the BBC's match report. Villa forward Ollie Watkins scored a first-half hat-trick -- becoming, per the BBC, the first player to score a Premier League hat-trick against Liverpool since Dimitar Berbatov managed it for Manchester United a decade earlier -- as Villa led 4-1 at halftime. Jack Grealish added a second-half brace and Ross Barkley and John McGinn also scored for Villa; Mohamed Salah scored twice for Liverpool in the loss. The scale of that result is separate from, but followed directly after, the squad's COVID absences reported by Sky Sports and CBS Sports.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by Sky Sports, CBS Sports and the BBC. It restores a story originally published on this site in October 2020; figures are as reported at the time.