Senegal and Liverpool winger, Sadio Mane is set to miss Liverpool’s Community Shield clash with 2018/2019 EPL winners, Manchester City after the Reds manager, Jurgen Klopp confirmed the star would return to training just days to the start of the Premier League season.
Mane helped Liverpool win the UEFA Champions League and also heap much pressure to Manchester City to finish just a point behind them.
Sadio Mane will return to the Reds after our Community Shield fixture against @ManCity.
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) July 22, 2019
He has also guided his national team, Senegal to the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals in Egypt, where they lost to Algeria in an early scored decider goal that came barely three minutes into the match.
The winger’s busy pre-season which was occupied by the AFCON tournament will mean he misses the FA Community Shield match on 4 August, set to return just four days out from his side’s league opener against Norwich City.
The manager spoke on the matter after his side was beaten by Sevilla in a pre-season match and had this to say:
“He is in good shape,” Klopp told the club’s website after a 2-1 friendly defeat to Sevilla on Sunday. “Obviously they had a celebration in Senegal and I’m happy about that because it showed that they respect the competition and saw second place as a success, which is nice.
Mo Salah, Firmino, Sadio Mane
Our best front three 🔥 #lfc pic.twitter.com/RJ87HOfOEc
— supermane10 (@supermanelfc) July 17, 2019
He is now on holiday, not the longest one. He will be back on August 5, after the Manchester City game. That means he has two weeks. There are four or five days to prepare for Norwich, 10 days for Chelsea in the UEFA Super Cup.”
The Senegal international scored 26 goals in 50 games in all competitions for the Red last season, finishing just one goal behind the team’s top scorer, Mohamed Salah whom they shared Premier League goals with Arsenal’s Aubemeyang with each netting 22 times.