Foot Injury Doesn’t Stop Liverpool’s Sadio Mané

Despite eliciting a few howls of disappointment from supporters thanks to a handful of flubbed scoring chances, Liverpool’s Sadio Mané was a vital, energetic cog in the Reds’ machine this weekend. Against Everton, he was quite frequently the primary source of forward motion in the opponents’ third, constantly looking to test the visitors, and out of the dangerous quartet of attackers Klopp deployed at the start of the match, Mané was the only one there at the final whistle.

Following the match, Klopp revealed that the Senegalese forward has somehow picked up a nasty cut on his foot towards the end of the match, and that had Mané let on, the substitutions might have gone a bit differently.

“He got better minute by minute,” was the manager’s assessment of Mané’s influence on this contest. “If you see now he is sitting in the dressing room and has a cut on his foot.”

“Twenty minutes from the end he got it, I don’t know how it happened but it was a very painful thing,” Klopp added. “He didn’t tell me, otherwise we may have changed (the substitutions) differently.”

It remains to be seen whether the injury will sideline Mané for any meaningful amount of time. Since he was able to complete the match against Everton (with little visible evidence that he was ailing), the cut might not hobble Liverpool’s No. 10. If the issue does need some nursing, however, we can probably expect to see Xherdan Shaqiri deployed out wide, with Jordan Henderson returning from suspension and James Milner also available.