I Expected Liverpool To Thrive Without Salah And Mane – Klopp

Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp has come out to share how his team is coping without Mohammed Salah and Sadio Mane. He recently had his say while speaking with the press, and fans have been reacting.

According to him, he had no doubt that the club will thrive in the absence of their key African players because he didn’t build a 2-man team.

Klopp added that losing players to key tournaments and injuries are normal, and it is up to the coach to still make it work.

His words, “It’s essential, the only way you can do it. When you lose key players for injuries or tournaments or whatever, the solution is not that you will be flying in the next game and you say, ‘OK, now we score five or six and you create chances like hell and all these kinds of things.”

“Wherever they are on the pitch, whether they are strikers, midfielders or wherever, [when] you lose key players you have to adapt. In our case, it was 100 percent clear that we have to be solid, rock solid.”

“It’s a clear agreement, maybe you don’t see it all the time, but ‘defending first’: we have to be organised, that is the basis for everything we do and at this moment I can see an outstanding commitment to our defending, that’s how it is.”

“It’s not greater satisfaction, no. I know we can do it without them, do I want to do it always without them? Why [would I]?”

“It’s just to react on these kinds of things, to stay in the game, to stay on top of the game for as long as possible, all these kinds of things. But we all do that with no time, it’s not that while they are still here we train like they are not here anymore, that makes no sense.”
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“So when they are gone you have three days until the next game: ‘Now, let’s have a look.’ That’s the situation so that makes it really tricky. I don’t get more satisfaction, it’s as good as it is when they are here and we win football games.”

“I was never in doubt that it is possible but I knew always that it’s difficult because players of their quality, you don’t replace like this [easily], it’s just not the case. I am looking forward to when they are back but I like as well the response of the squad at the moment, that’s true.”