KLOPP OF NATIONS

Win or lose, our team spirit is strong

JURGEN KLOPP is hoping he won’t have to play the role of mediator when Mo Salah and Sadio Mane return from the Africa Cup of Nations.

The Liverpool pair are set for a showdown in Cameroon this evening after helping Egypt and Senegal plot a route to the final.

But Klopp (below) has vowed to do all he can to ensure that there are no lasting effects from the duo’s winner-takes-all clash.

He said: “I’m not a guy who thinks everything will be a problem.

Winner

“Both played a successful tournament and we will see the situation in December exactly the same when everybody is coming back from the World Cup and there is one winner and all the rest lost. That’s the world we created for these boys.

“I will deal with it, no problem, I will help them with all I have. When they come back, we will have a talk and we will see if they need anything – a day off, two days off, whatever.

“They’re our boys and we will do anything to help them through all the different situations, that’s how it always was.

“It will be exactly the same after the World Cup.” Although they will miss the FA Cup clash with Cardiff, Klopp expects both Mane (left) and Salah (right) to want to play in the Premier League against Leicester on Thursday.

But the German insists the final call on whether either of them do will be his decision. He added: “These two boys are real warriors. They are not too worried about holidays or days off, they never asked anything about it.

“It’s really pretty simple. I know they want to play immediately, but we have to find out how much sense it makes. We will see.

“You can imagine both want to play against Leicester, both want to be involved, to score goals, to win football games for Liverpool. The boys will come back, and then we talk.”

Both have taken on leadership roles while away with their countries, despite tending to acquiesce to others at Liverpool.

On that transformation, Klopp said: “The experienced players are very influential. The pep talk before the game, Milly and Hendo are more vocal. As a non-native speaker, I’m not very vocal because in these moments every word has to hit the nail.

“But they are there in their own language, are the most important players – and they take the role. That’s impressive.

“I was never in doubt that they had leadership skills, but we are different groups and they have different things to do in different groups.”