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AFCON: Klopp explains how Liverpool will cope with African absentees

Jurgen Klopp - Liverpool, AFCON - Africa Cup of Nations
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The Reds boss will be without several of the key members of his squad when the Africa Cup of Nations gets underway in January.

Jurgen Klopp is “quite confident” that Liverpool will “find solutions” to cope with the absence of some of the team’s pivotal players during the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).

The 24-team Africa Cup of Nations is set to be played between January 9 and February 6 in Cameroon, although the competition could be called off in the wake of the widespread of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

Should the competition go through, Liverpool will lose Egypt’s Mohamed Salah, Senegal’s Sadio Mane, and Guinea’s Naby Keita for several weeks.

“We knew three would be qualified and be there and we knew that at least two of them will go pretty far in the tournament,” said Klopp, as Daily Mail reports.

“Can you be prepared for something like that, properly, perfectly? Like a one-for-one replacement for Sadio, a replacement for Mo, one replacement for Naby?

“That’s tricky in each situation but I am happy with the squad and we have options to play and still to play football.

‘”The thing is there are so many games coming up when we are still together – that is the most intense period now – but then we have a lot of games when Mo and Naby and Sadio are not here.

“That means we have to find line-ups for these games, even when we have cup competitions we have to find line-ups for these games as well, and that is the situation so you can never be perfectly prepared for this.

“We are quite confident we will find solutions.”

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