Jürgen Klopp has said he wanted to punch himself after rejecting the chance to sign Sadio Mané for Borussia Dortmund but believes his mistake ultimately saved Liverpool a fortune.
Mané faces his former club, Southampton, on Saturday for the first time since his £34 million (€39.6 million) summer move to Anfield. The Senegal international has played an integral part in Liverpool's rise to the Premier League summit, scoring six goals in 10 league games and settling in seamlessly alongside Roberto Firmino and Philippe Coutinho in attack.
The 24-year-old could have joined Klopp at Dortmund in 2014 but the German coach, despite tracking the then Red Bull Salzburg forward since the 2012 Olympics and holding face-to-face talks, decided not to pursue a deal.
Mané signed for Ronald Koeman at Southampton that summer for £11.8 million (€13.7 million) and Klopp soon realised he had erred as Dortmund made a dreadful start to what proved to be his final season in charge.
Liverpool eventually benefited, however, as Klopp remained determined to sign the forward and believes Mané would have cost much more to prise from Dortmund than St Mary’s.
Mistake
“It was a pretty simple decision with Sadio this summer because I made the mistake at Dortmund where I didn’t take him,” said the Liverpool manager. “We met each other, we talked but by the end I didn’t feel this [strikes hands together]. About three months later I would have punched myself, so I already knew that the next chance I have, I would take it.
"So it was not a difficult decision. When Michael Edwards [Liverpool's new sporting director] said we have an opportunity there were no talks necessary any more. It was a case of: 'Let's do it.'
“I don’t know why I didn’t sign him before. I like the player, it was more of a feeling. At Dortmund we could only get one player for this position, not two or three, so it needed to be exactly the right fit in this moment.
“I’ve said a lot of times, I’m not a genius and I couldn’t exactly imagine where he was in terms of playing in the Austrian league and what does the Austrian league mean for the football [at Dortmund] ? I have made more mistakes in my life like this but he would have been more expensive if we had taken him to Dortmund and then he had been sold to Liverpool, so all good for Liverpool. The more I think about it, that was my first Liverpool decision. Nice.”
Selling assets
Mané scored twice as Southampton came from two goals down to defeat Liverpool at St Mary’s last season and Klopp views Saturday’s opponents as a model club in terms of selling assets while remaining at a consistently high level.
The Liverpool manager, who could be without Coutinho and Adam Lallana because of hamstring and groin problems respectively, believes there are parallels with Dortmund in how Southampton operate.
“Tell me two other Premier League clubs, or Bundesliga clubs, who could lose the quality of Sadio Mané and [Graziano] Pellè in one season and then the next year you think: ‘Oh yes, they are good again,’” he said.
“Take Mané. The negotiations go on and they’re saying: ‘Not for this price, not for this price,’ but they already have [Nathan] Redmond in their pocket. Then they sell. That’s good, it’s what you have to do and what we did at Borussia Dortmund. They always took our players and we had to replace them. Everyone says there is not another player like him in the world but there are a lot of good players.” – (Guardian service)
