Jürgen Klopp on the 'perfect' break for Salah, Mane et al
Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane are among the members of Liverpool's squad who feel 'refreshed' after not playing during the international break, Jürgen Klopp has explained.
The Reds’ season resumes when Newcastle United visit Anfield on Saturday some two weeks after their previous outing, a 3-0 win at Burnley.
With Egypt and Senegal not in action this month, Salah and Mane feature in a small group of Klopp’s players to have enjoyed a fortnight without a game - a rest period the manager sees as beneficial.
“It was perfect for the boys who didn’t have to go, that’s how it is,” Klopp said.
“It’s always that challenge - I’m really happy for the boys being named for their national team, it’s really nice, it’s a big honour and all that stuff, but I’ve said it 500 times, if you see the players who didn’t have to go this time for different reasons then everything is different.
“It’s in a very intense period to have these kind of five or six days off. They trained, they always train, but they don’t have to be here and do proper football sessions because usually we only have three players here so that makes no sense. This time there would have been five so we could have trained, but it still makes no sense and Sadio and Mo have still not the time off they needed.
“For all the others it’s really tough, always they have two games. We speak about the international ‘break’, but they have another week with two games which is just not easy over in the long period, but we cannot change that so we don’t think too much about it.
“But the more often we could do something like that the better it would be for the boys because it not only feels that they’re refreshed, they are now refreshed. That’s how it is and hopefully we can use that.”