Barcelona Can Not Replace Messi With Mane Or Salah – John Barnes

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Barcelona Can Not Replace Messi With Mane Or Salah – John Barnes

Barcelona will not look to sign Sadio Mane or Mohamed Salah from Liverpool to replace Lionel Messi because their style of play is completely different to that of the Argentine, according to John Barnes.

Messi wants to quit Barcelona this summer, leaving the Spanish giants in the difficult position of having to try and replace their talismanic forward.

Mane and Salah, who were both key in helping Liverpool win the Premier League last season, have been mentioned as possible replacements for the 33-year-old, whose father and agent Jorge is due to meet Barca for showdown talks.

However, former Reds forward Barnes thinks that, because both Mane and Salah have a completely different style of play than Messi, they will not be targets for Barcelona unless the Liga club decided to move in a completely new direction.

Speaking to BonusCodeBets, Barnes said:

“You can’t replace Lionel Messi. Barcelona can’t replace him with Sadio Mane or Mohamed Salah because they are different types of players, you’ll have to come up with a different solution to how you want to play and whether Ronald Koeman would like that type of player, we don’t know.

“You can’t look to replace Messi with one player, it’s impossible as there is no player like him. What he has to do is come up with a formula, you can’t replace Messi like-for-like, so I don’t think that’s going to be an issue for Liverpool.”