Jürgen Klopp has denied the exertions of recent seasons have caught up with Sadio Mané but admits a lack of goals is preying on the Liverpool forward’s mind.
The Senegal international has 12 goals in 39 appearances for Liverpool in all competitions this season but only seven in the Premier League, and his past 13 league outings have produced one goal. Mané’s schedule has been relentless for club and country for the past three years but Klopp does not believe the player’s dip stems from a physical problem. His theory is that the 28-year-old has been over-thinking his form in front of goal during a difficult campaign for the Premier League champions.
“We all know how good Sadio Mané is, what a player he is and what he did for us, but obviously the numbers scoring-wise are not great at the moment,” the manager said. “He knows that, and a player with the mindset of Sadio wants to do extremely well. That is the situation he is in and each striker in the world knows these kind of situations. I’m not concerned but I see it as well. It is clear and we work on it.
“The schedule of the last three years was for a lot of players in world football a tough one, for him as well, but I don’t think that is the reason. There is no real physical problem for Sadio. We all need breaks from time to time but it is not a general problem, it is just the situation. If you don’t score for a while then strikers start thinking. The moment you start thinking exactly the right things again then it will be fine again. We have to make sure that this time is not too far away.”
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Liverpool host Aston Villa on Saturday seeking not only to avenge October’s 7-2 defeat at Villa Park but a first win at Anfield since 16 December.
“We have a losing streak of six in a row – wow! That’s long,” Klopp said. “We have to change that. It is not about how I can change that in training; we have to bring ourselves in the right mindset. We decided – although it didn’t look like it in the Madrid game – that we chase everybody in this league. We just want to squeeze out of this season whatever we can get.
“For a long time nobody could really explain why we were so strong at home result-wise and now this is not easy to explain. The main reason is that we miss our supporters, but we’ve played very good games without supporters at home and that’s what we have to do now.”