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When Liverpool return to action against Leicester City on February 27th, it will be over two weeks since they last played a game. In the mean time, the team and their manager camped out in Spain for a mini-training camp to rejuvenate the squad and prepare for the final games to come.
Sadio Mané, Liverpool’s top scorer, has had a particularly hectic winter with his mid-season trek to represent Senegal in the African Cup of Nations. When asked about the team’s experience in Spain, the wily attacker was positive about the experience.
“It went very well. We had a good time but we also worked very hard, we trained together well and we also had a friendly game amongst ourselves. The weather wasn’t brilliant but a bit better than here,” he told the official website.
“It was just like one [a pre-season]. OK, the weather was good and we had a good time, but the training sessions were very intense so it was like a pre-season.
“It was good to bring the team together again because we had a break after Tottenham. We shared rooms so we were spending time together and getting to know each other as people as well as the training side.”
Cynics may say that the break came at the wrong time, with Liverpool finally gaining some momentum back after soundly defeating Spurs 2-0 at Anfield. After the ridiculous fixtures nightmare of last season, however, 16 days to relax, recover, and train must seem like a godsend to both the players and Klopp.
Monday they will be facing a Leicester City side who are barely above the drop zone, and as we know, Liverpool have been very kind to the relegation battlers this season.
But Liverpool are in a battle of their own. Top four is still very much on the table, but they have finish off the season strong in order to attain it. Hopefully that impetus will be enough for them to break this terrible trend towards gifting points to teams at the bottom of the table.
“The last few weeks have been quite difficult for obvious reasons,” Mané continued, “but we didn’t stop working during that period and that was important.”
“But re-finding our form against Tottenham and the way we did it, we thought ‘we’re back now and we’ve got to maintain this’. We have to play the match against Leicester with the same attitude.”