2 players Liverpool must start in every game if they are to close the gap on Chelsea

Sadio Mane

Liverpool have seriously struggled at the start of 2017, and there’s no coincidence that their drop in form took place while Sadio Mane was away on African Cup of Nations duty with Senegal.

The 24-year-old scored in the Reds’ 2-2 draw with Sunderland on January 2 before joining up with the national team, and he returned to Anfield just before their 1-1 draw with Chelsea on January 31.

Mane missed seven Liverpool games in the end, and Klopp’s men only won one of them, which itself was an unconvincing 1-0 success away at Plymouth Argyle in an FA Cup third round replay.

Obviously, when you take nine goals and four assists out a side for a long period of time, it is going to have an impact, but it wasn’t just Mane’s contributions that they missed, they missed his energy, his tenacity, and his ability to want to get at defenders and cause them issues.

The Senegalese international will likely need a bit of time to get back to full fitness after flying home immediately after Senegal’s defeat in the quarter-finals of the African Cup of Nations, but once he gets there, he’ll be one of the first names on the teamsheet for the rest of the season.