Jurgen Klopp Liverpool
Jurgen Klopp believes Sadio Mane has been an unfair target for opposition defenders for years at Liverpool. But the Liverpool boss feels his No.10 is now at an age where it is easier to overcome players who are attempting to disrupt his game.
Jurgen Klopp explained: “Oh yes, we have [spoken], but for sure for much longer it was a thing, even when it was not obvious to the outside. You can see it in games they go for him because they want to wind him up, even if it is not that obvious. But it is two different things; one is to make Sadio to be really aggressive during games, we saw that against Flamengo in the Club World Cup final (December 2019). Rafinha wanted to go for him after he caused them some problems when we played Bayern Munich in the Champions League, it was obvious from the first second. It was really hard and Sadio is having a discussion with him [saying]: ‘what do you want?’, fouling him and getting up and saying it was nothing, these kinds of things. But Sadio is now of an age where he is much better at that. He’s not that emotional any more, but we all need emotions obviously and sometimes we control them better and sometimes less and yes we’ve had these talks, of course, but that was not about that. It had nothing to do with these situations, I really don’t think it had anything to do with the situation against Arsenal, it was pretty much nothing, a normal challenge. The same with Real Madrid it was obvious and against Atletico Madrid it was pretty much obvious. They had the red card (for Felipe at Anfield) and you will remember directly after the next situation a player went down and made more [of the challenge] just to make sure they get our player sent off or yellow card, so that is what I was talking about. It is just that…The headline is ‘we pay back with football’. We pay back with football, so whatever we do, we pay them back with football.”
Jurgen Klopp added: “I think we can judge Sadio as an individual, as a world-class player, so that is it, it’s not [that we judge him] against Mo Salah or whatever. You see the numbers. Mo has 108 goals (in the Premier League) and Sadio has 106 (all comps) most of them for Liverpool, but obviously some with Southampton. So it just shows – they are in a similar age group – what those two guys did in the last few years for us. We don’t make a difference there between the two. With Sadio, nothing was needed really, when you think about last season and this season. I didn’t have long talks with Sadio or anything like that. Sadio is a very confident person and knew….we all felt it on the first day of pre-season, after a proper break, he was completely 100 per cent there. It was clear. It was obvious that if he was lucky with injuries it would be a really good season for him because that is the quality he has. And that is what he shows now. So I cannot say enough how important it is for these players to have a proper break – I will speak about that until the next 20 years, but the authorities will not change it. That is really tough for the boys. But this year Mo and Sadio had a proper break and at the moment, so far, we are getting the benefit of that.”
Mane was substituted at half time of the 1-0 defeat in the Champions League in February 2020 after an early booking and was once again cautioned in the more recent triumph at Anfield after reacting to a late tackle by Koke. Klopp detailed the game with Flamengo in the Club World Cup final nearly two years ago as proof of how long Mane has been targeted, but the Liverpool manager says his forward is now able to handle it in the right way.
