Joe Gomez: “It’s a bit of a luxury to have Sadio Mané”

Yesterday’s game away to Norwich could have been a banana peel. Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool side have been notoriously mediocre coming off of a break, and Carrow Road is a tricky place to play (just ask Manchester City). Throw Storm Dennis and its strong winds on top of that, and this fixture had all the makings of a “whoopsie” game. Thankfully for Liverpool, they had quite possibly the best player in the world this year on the bench to save them.

“It’s a bit of a luxury to have Sadio Mané come off the bench but when he does and gets that goal it’s massive,” said Joe Gomez of his Senegalese teammate. “All the different ways and different forms of goals, it shows his quality and we were lucky to have him come off the bench but obviously that was due to his injury.”

Gomez, on a brilliant run of form himself, went on to wax poetic on the effect of having a player of Mané’s caliber.

“What a player, he gives you a boost of confidence when he’s coming on and psychologically for another team it’s not nice! He’s massive and he’s popped up for us in so many moments this year and done it yet again.”

I’d have to agree with you Joe, if I were an opposing player and I saw Sadio warming up to come on, I would feel it was extremely not nice to try and deal with his game-changing abilities on tired legs.

Getting Sadio Mané back from injury now is a huge boost as Liverpool re-enter the Champions League competition in the knock out stages, and are still competing on three fronts. After a brief respite, the Reds are now back to an intense period of fixtures.

“We’ve had the winter break and now it’s down the home stretch,” said Gomez.

“We know how important this run of games is as it’s an intense period of the season and it’s crunch time really. It’s the most important part and you just build the foundation from the start of the season to this period here. We are blessed to have the squad that we do and everyone will have to play their part to get us over the line.”