Liverpool are planning for life without Sadio Mane says Jurgen Klopp

Liverpool have a plan for the absence Sadio Mane due to his involvement in today’s Africa Cup of Nations final says Jurgen Klopp.

Liverpool are preparing to play in their third preseason game but Sadio Mane is still hasn’t finished last season! However Jurgen Klopp has a plan to deal with his extended absence from the first team.

Mane will start today for Senegal against Algeria in the Africa Cup of Nations final and will hope to join Roberto Firmino and Alisson Becker in bringing a trophy to his international team to follow on from Liverpool’s Champions League victory over Tottenham Hotspur last month.

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He will head on his vacation in the next few days and will have the same three-week break that all those on international duty have had.

That means he will arrive back at Melwood the same weekend Liverpool will be facing Manchester City in the Community Shield. Obviously he won’t feature in that game and is unlikely to start against Norwich City on the opening day of the 2019/20 Premier League season the following weekend.

The good thing for Jurgen Klopp is that he knows this absence is coming. Usually when a player is injured during the course of the season the manager has to react on the fly.

But for this scenario he has already worked out a plan as he revealed in his pre-match press conference yesterday ahead of the first game of the club’s US tour against Borussia Dortmund later today. You can watch the whole conference here:

The most obvious way to cope with losing Sadio Mane is simply to play Divock Origi on the left where he started a few games last season. However most of his best work came in central areas at the end of the season.

Klopp could then opt to play Rhian Brewster – who has been hugely impressive in pre-season – in the middle and start Firmino on the left or adapt to a having the Brazilian in ‘the hole’ with Brewster and Salah as a forward pair in the early games of the year.