Sadio Mane has insisted that Jurgen Klopp will eventually change things at Liverpool.
Sadio Mane is confident Jurgen Klopp will be able to turn things around at Liverpool in the coming months, despite the club’s poor form in the Premier League and Europe this season. The Reds are currently a long way from the top four of the division as they stand, while also facing elimination from the Champions League after a 5-2 defeat to Real Madrid ahead of this month’s return to the Bernabeu.
Liverpool’s poor form has sparked speculation that Klopp has taken them the furthest possible after a successful eight years in charge of the Anfield club, although Mane remains of the opinion his former manager will eventually sort things out using its unrivaled man-management. skills to keep morale up.
“Liverpool will be back,” Mane, who left the Reds for Bayern Munich last summer, said in an interview with Bild. “I’m sure they can handle this situation. They’ve had a lot of injuries and tough ordeals, but Jurgen Klopp is definitely the right person. He will bring Liverpool back from this season, the players love him.”
Mane’s departure coincided with Liverpool’s downturn in recent months, after the Senegal winger shone during his six-year tenure at Anfield, winning heaps of trophies and establishing himself as one of the best players Premier League following his move from Southampton in 2016. An injury that prevented him from representing his country at the World Cup, he enjoyed a relatively strong first season in Germany, scoring 11 goals and four assists in all previous competitions .
The former Reds ace went on to stress that he was largely happy with the way the Bundesliga was going, adding: “I never had any doubts. When I decided to leave Liverpool, all I wanted was to go to FC Bayern, in the Bundesliga.
“I know the league from my time in Salzburg, I didn’t watch the Premier League then, but the Bundesliga. FC Bayern attracted me a lot back then. I met Cristiano Ronaldo before this season after I moved to Mallorca. He congratulated me and said, ‘A great club! It’s a great decision for you!’
Meanwhile, it remains to be seen whether Liverpool can return to their best in Mane’s absence, as Klopp’s priority is to bring a welcome end to the club’s lackluster form. Former Reds midfielder Didi Hamann was among those who wondered whether or not Liverpool would reap the rewards of a managerial change in recent months, with the 49-year-old insisting Klopp is not just considered immune given that his past performances could be taken against criticism.
“I think we’re going to have that managerial discussion at some point and I don’t know how far we are from that,” Hamann told talkSPORT. “He said he still felt like he was the right man for it, but I see little things like Jordan Henderson seeing his number go up midweek and reluctantly taking his armband off and untie and shake your head.
“We haven’t seen this at Liverpool for five years. Maybe these are small signs that people have little problem with the team or even the manager.” The dynamic at Liverpool is no different to anywhere else and if the results are not there the pressure will come on the manager.”