Jurgen Klopp is confident Sadio Mane will be fit to face Sheffield United on Saturday after the attacker was pictured with an ice-pack on his leg.
The Reds can ill-afford any more injuries to their key men after Virgil van Dijk’s potential season-ending ACL blow.
Not that it affected Liverpool too much as their reshuffled side managed to carve out a 1-0 win at Ajax on Wednesday.
After the game, Klopp seemed more than content with their dogged display. That’s despite admitting they didn’t have a “sunshine world class football day”.
Even so, Nicolas Tagliafico’s own goal proved decisive, with Klopp bringing off Mane, Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino with 30 minutes to play.
Mane was pictured with an ice-pack on his thigh while sat on the bench, prompting fears he could face time on the sidelines.
However, Klopp was quick to dampen fears he faces a lay-off.
“Sadio has since a few days a dead leg and deals with that in that area,” Klopp said.
“That’s the only thing why it’s still painful but it’s not a problem.
“When he doesn’t play, he puts ice on it.”
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Klopp on triple substitution
Klopp confirmed that the decision to bring his front trio off was purely because he wants to manage the workload of his players. But it was also because he feels he has adequate back-up.
Xherdan Shaqiri, Takumi Minamino and Diogo Jota all coming on in their place.
“Game management is one thing, the other is use the powers of the others,” he said.
“You saw they were fresher, they were the hardest working [players]. It’s a shame Diogo didn’t score, Shaq was lively and Taki is a machine, he’s everywhere.
“He defends like a devil and offensively he’s really involved, nice one-twos with Diogo on the side when they came in the box.
“That helps obviously, when you can make five changes in midweek games. Most of the time we will have to do that.”
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