Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has hinted that Sadio Mane could be left out of the starting line-up against Aston Villa at Anfield on Saturday afternoon, suggesting that Senegal’s international needs a mental “break” after a relentless couple of years.
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Despite assistants in the last two Premier League matches, Mane has so far only scored seven goals in the league and only once during the last 13 matches in the competition. He did at home and away against Leipzig in the Champions League, but his form has become a big talking point.
Jurgen Klopp has indicated that Mane suffers from low confidence | Pool / Getty Images
As Liverpool prepare to host Villa, who won 7-2 in a rematch in October, Roberto Firmino’s expected return from the start after coming off the bench against Real Madrid in the middle of the week and the presence of Diogo Jota gives Klopp the chance to pull Mane out of the limelight.
“We all know how good Sadio Mane is, what a player he is and what he did for us,” Klopp was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.
“But obviously the numbers are not so good right now and he knows it. For a player with the idea of Sadio, he wants to do extremely well. But this is the situation he’s in,
“There is no physical problem for Sadio, not a real problem – we need all the breaks from time to time, of course – but it is not a general problem. That’s just the situation. If you do not score for a while, the strikers will start thinking. It is a moment when you start thinking exactly the right things again and then it will be good again. We must make sure that this time is not too far away. ”
Liverpool enter the Villa match after playing only once at Anfield in the Premier League this calendar year and failed to win at home in the league since the victory against Spurs on 16 December.
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