Ever since Mohamed Salah arrived at Liverpool from Roma and started scoring goals aplenty, comparisons with his teammate Sadio Mané have been a thing.
The pair cohabit perfectly well in Jürgen Klopp’s frenetic attacking style, helped by a generous Roberto Firmino, who will happily sacrifice himself for the good of the team and his teammates.
However, sometimes, greed might take over, and a shot is attempted when a pass might have been the smarter option, which leads to frustration on the pitch between teammates.
Such an incident was caught on camera against Burnley between Mané and Salah, where the Egyptian took a shot instead of giving the ball to the Senegal international, who was in a better position.
Speaking to Canal Plus Sport, the left winger recalled what happened, and reassured everyone everything is absolutely fine between the pair.
He said: “It was a misunderstanding. I just wanted to help the team. You look at teams like City, they sometimes score five or six. If there’s a possibility to kill off the game as quickly as possible all the while trying to score many goals, I think that’s important, and so I was a bit frustrated.
“We just talked, and everything was like before. We talked between ourselves, and then the manager called me into his office and we spoke. I told him it was already sorted and he was pleasantly surprised”.
Asked what Salah’s excuse was for not passing him the ball, Mané said: “He told me ‘but Sadio, why are you angry?’ I told him ‘you needed to give me the ball, Mo’, to which he replied ‘I didn’t see you. You know I’ve got nothing against you’. I knew that, but his reaction was a bit strange to me (laughs)”.
It’s clear the pair have put whatever small amount of bad blood stemmed from that spat (if you want to even call it that) behind them, which is needed since the duo can’t avoid each other, whether it be on the pitch or in the dressing room.
Mané continued: “We’re always side by side. He’s 10 and I’m 11 . We text each other sometimes. We even talk on the phone, but we don’t have a problem”.
Even if the pair were angry at each other and it had lasted longer than expected, the rest of the dressing room wouldn’t have let it linger, as the forward revealed.
He said, laughing: “Everyone was taking the p**s out of us. Wijnaldum, who likes to tease people, waited until everyone was there, came up to me and asked out loud ‘Mo Salah, why did Mané want to hit you?’ and the whole team started laughing”.
It seems Klopp really has bred a family atmosphere in Liverpool’s squad, and even frustrations don’t take long to dissipate, which is key to keep their incredible run of form in England’s top-tier on the right track, as the club look to win their first ever Premier League (as we know it) title this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVJP3fu7xqo&t=256s
