Sadio Mane's Liverpool success proves Ahmed Musa was set up to fail

For all that the singularity of the Premier League’s foibles is often overblown, it goes some way toward explaining exactly why Ahmed Musa has struggled terribly at reigning champions Leicester City. That he has been held up as a representation of everything that has gone wrong with the Foxes’ title challenge borders on scapegoating, but the facts cannot be denied: at a fee of close to £20 million, the Nigeria international has so far constituted a waste of money.

For a time though, notably while streaking through half the length of Camp Nou in preseason to score the first of a top-quality brace, he looked rather like the opposite. On Monday, he will stand across from Liverpool’s Sadio Mane and see the image of perhaps what the Leicester hierarchy had expected him to be.

This is, of course, if he even gets to take the field.

Put both men side by side, and the viewing is not pretty.

It would be easy to wave away any comparisons, as the Senegal international has often times seemed a ball of raw excitement since his move to Anfield, rolling defenders and bounding past challenges with an energy that is at once exhausting and gleeful to watch.

However, only one of these two players has earned over 50 international caps, played in the Uefa Champions League and scored multiple times at a World Cup.

It is not Mane.

What then has gone wrong?

Well, as allowed earlier, adapting to the Premier League is a considerable feat. It is something of a cliche, one which in the past was tinged with subtle xenophobic and jingoistic undertones, but players from other leagues do tend to require a bedding-in period. The length of this has significantly reduced since the 90s, and so it is not quite the disconcerting culture shock it once was.