Mane takes the plaudits as Klopp hails new Liverpool trio

Sadio Mane: In action against Tranmere

Sadio Mane: In action against Tranmere

Sadio Mane’s performance drew praise from Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool’s £34million summer signing from Southampton made his Reds debut on Friday night.

Mane started for Liverpool along with Roberto Firmino and played 45 impressive minutes at Prenton Park as the Reds won 1-0 in their first pre-season match of the summer.

“He was quite good so I was satisfied. It’s something like an exciting two weeks or 10 days – it took a little bit of time,” said Klopp.

“He trained a lot in this break and he did what he had to do and now he is here. He is a very, very nice guy to be honest and a good football player. Everybody could see in the first half, with really tired legs, he really played a good game. He could have scored of course, he could have done one of the other things a little bit better but I was fine.

“Obviously, Sadio was most impressive player in the first half for a new player because he had really good moments and played brilliantly with Roberto Firmino.”

Klopp’s other two new signings Joel Matip and goalkeeper Loris Karius also played, with Klopp explaining why his new centre-half did not look very commanding.

“He’s a good goalkeeper – no doubt about this – that’s why we made a transfer, by the way. Second new player Joel Matip, he had a little surgery in the break. He had a screw in his ankle and they had to take it out because of an older injury, so a little bit of infection and only two weeks in training.

“You could see in the first half that he couldn’t jump, which is actually his big strength. He lost one or two headed challenges. You see in preseason, that’s OK, that’s not OK and you work on it or you ignore it, whatever.”