Sadio Mané has shed further light on his clash with Mohamed Salah during Liverpool’s victory over Burnley in August.
Mané was visibly frustrated when Salah took a shot rather than passing to the Senegal international in the closing stages of the game at Turf Moor.
Mané voiced his discontent to Roberto Firmino and James Milner shortly after being substituted with Jurgen Klopp’s side 3-0 up.
Klopp played down the incident after the game, while Mané later insisted it was merely a heat-of-the-moment reaction.
And the former Southampton forward has returned to the issue and spoken more generally about his off-field relationship with Salah.
“You look at teams like [Manchester] City, they sometimes score five or six,” he told Canal+. “If there’s a possibility to kill off the game as quickly as possible while trying to score many goals, I think that’s important, and so I was a bit frustrated.
“He [Salah] told me, ‘but Sadio, why are you angry?’ I told him, ‘You needed to give me the ball, Mo’ to which he replied, ‘I didn’t see you. You know I’ve got nothing against you’. I knew that, but his reaction was a bit strange to me!
“We’re always side by side. He’s [No.] 10 and I’m [No.] 11. We text each other sometimes. We even talk on the phone, but we don’t have a problem."
Mané also revealed that other members of the Liverpool squad teased them both after their disagreement.
“Everyone was taking the piss out of us," he added. "[Georginio] Wijnaldum, who likes to tease people, waited until everyone was there, came up to me and asked out loud, ‘Mo Salah, why did Mané want to hit you?’ and the whole team started laughing.”
Liverpool will be looking to maintain their 100 per cent winning start to the Premier League season when they take on fierce rivals Manchester United on Sunday.
READ MORE...
Why Swansea's Steve Cooper could be the future England manager nobody's talking about
7 Premier League greats who bounced back from a bad start
Why modern football's heroes could be desperately short of soul for future generations to find
