Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah will be considered for the Merseyside derby on Friday even though they undertake a remarkable 6000-mile round trip 12 hours earlier.
Liverpool have chartered a private jet to allow Mane and Salah to attend the Africa Footballer of the Year awards, which are being staged in Ghana on Thursday. The influential attackers will leave Merseyside on Thursday morning and return immediately after the event.
It is a six-hour flight to Accra but Jurgen Klopp has no concerns about Mane, who scored his first goal in the Premier League since November 29 in the 2-1 win over Burnley, spending 12 hours in the air before the FA Cup third round tie and does not believe their preparations will be affected.
“We have everything organised,” said Klopp. ‘’We have two of the three best African players in our squad. We have to show them respect.
”’If it had been a matchday, they wouldn’t have asked (to go). We sleep in a hotel the night before a game; they will sleep in a plane. That is all the difference.”
Salah will continue to receive treatment for the groin injury that ruled him out of Monday’s trip to Turf Moor but, should he not make the squad against Everton, Klopp says it will have nothing to do with being in Ghana.
”If Mo is not fit, it will not be for that,’ he said. ‘For our side, it is just a sign of respect. I know it, I had (Pierre-Emerick) Aubameyang at Borussia Dortmund and there is nothing more important than to go there.”
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