CHELSEA LIVERPOOL

JURGEN KLOPP has been making sure Mo Salah and Sadio Mane feel the love.

The Liverpool boss refused to play the blame game after a 1-0 defeat at Leicester on Tuesday night saw Salah miss a penalty and Mane blow another golden chance when the game was goalless.

With his team’s title chances now in the balance, Klopp compared Salah to the late NBA legend Kobe Bryant (right) – and prepared for the make-or-break clash with Chelsea by showing Mane a highlights tape of his greatest Anfield moments.

“Sadio has no problem with confidence,” said Klopp, who needs Mane and Salah to find their shooting boots at Stamford Bridge today before they jet off to the Africa Cup of Nations.

Mane, the 29-year-old Senegal forward, is enduring his worst run of form since he arrived at Liverpool and has now failed to score or make an assist for 808 minutes.

Klopp said: “Of course, the momentum, finishing-wise, is not there at the moment. You can see that, otherwise Sadio plays really well.

“There is actually a funny story from this morning. One of our analysts knocked on my door and asked if I had two minutes.

“I made a video to show Sadio how much he contributes to our game and how good he is in the moments, how good he is there and in situations.

“Obviously, the intention was to show that he should not be too worried that the finishing is not there at the moment.

“But he is still an incredibly important player for us. That is actually the view we have on him.

“Pretty much all strikers have to go through these kinds of things.

“It happened to Sadio before and he came out of it.

“He scored incredibly important goals for us and I’m really positive that he has chances to score on Sunday.

“After that, he is away for a few weeks, then he comes back and we can talk about all the things.

“But, for this game, it’s all fine. You have to take these types of things from time to time and then it will be good again.

“It’s not about talking about it and making a big event of it.

“We’re human beings – and that’s how it is.”

Salah, 29, has put himself in the frame for the Ballon d’Or with 22 goals and nine assists.

But he was thwarted by Kasper Schmeichel at the King Power and then headed the rebound from his saved penalty against the crossbar as Liverpool suffered a defeat that sent them spinning out of Manchester City’s slipstream in the title race.

With Chelsea’s season also stalling, Klopp will be desperate to take three valuable points before his Egyptian talisman also leaves for the AFCON.

The Liverpool boss insisted that Bryant, the former LA Lakers star who missed a record 14,481 shots at the basket during a glittering 18-year career that brought him five NBA titles, proved that great sportsmen are never afraid to take a shot.

Klopp said: “None of us has ever succeeded in all difficult situations. That’s how it is.

“I’m not sure, but I think Kobe Bryant is still the one player with the most missed situations in NBA history – and he was one of the greatest players ever.

“You have to try it. You have to come in these situations and then you can fail.

“If you fail, no problem, go again and everything will be fine – and that is pretty much the mindset Mo is in and Sadio as well.

“We don’t know how Mo will react because we don’t have a lot of experience of him dealing with a crisis because he didn’t have to. It was unlucky. But they are top, top, top-class players.

“They deal constantly with failure, that’s our life. They have to deal with it during every game.

“That’s what you learn pretty early as a footballer.

“The better you are, the more often you will fail because you come constantly in these decisive moments.”