Mo Salah in Real Madrid link as Jurgen Klopp faces battle to keep Liverpool star
Klopp can secure a place in Champions League last 16 with a win against Sevilla and will be looking to Salah for firepower
JURGEN KLOPP led the fight to stop Philippe Coutinho from joining Barcelona last summer.
Incredibly, the Liverpool manager potentially faces an even tougher battle to prevent Mo Salah from joining Real Madrid.
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Klopp can secure a place in the last 16 of the Champions League tonight with a win in southern Spain and it will hardly be a massive surprise if Salah — who has scored 14 times in 18 games since joining from Roma for £34.3million — is their star man.
Salah, 25, scored twice in Saturday’s 3-0 win over Southampton and Egyptian legend and former Spurs striker Mido predicted that his fellow countryman will soon join Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo at the Bernabeu.
On social media, Mido wrote: “I believe that Salah will not stay for long at @LFC! Soon he will be gone to @realmadrid #HalaMadrid.
“Remember when the Liverpool fans made fun of me when I said three years ago that Salah is ten times better than Sterling . . . well now they know I was right! Keep going son!”
Ahead of potentially Liverpool’s toughest group match, Klopp was asked whether he was concerned that both Salah and Coutinho — who handed in a transfer request in August to unsuccessfully force a Barca switch — were wanted by Spain’s two giants.
The German said: “No. The only opportunity for us is to be successful is to have good players.
“If you have good players, it is our job to make sure these players want to stay.
“At Liverpool, we don’t want players to go somewhere else.
“It is a long season and we have put this team together and we want to be as successful as possible. I’m happy to have these players and hopefully they can be on top form here.
“It is all good. You people in Spain are used to a lot of media. Barcelona, Real Madrid and all that stuff.
LA LA LAND Liverpool star Adam Lallana returns to squad for Sevilla clash
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Karius, Gomez, Klavan, Lovren, Moreno, Henderson, Can, Coutinho, Salah, Firmino, Mane.
“We are completely cool and Phil is 100 per cent with Liverpool after all the summer talks.”
When Coutinho’s future looked in doubt, no one expected Salah to make such a remarkable impact and Chelsea — who let him leave for £11m — are kicking themselves.
Klopp added: “I really like his goals and all this stuff but that is in the past.
“I am more interested in his statistics in this game. We need a result against Sevilla to make sure we can get past this stage.”
Fit-again Adam Lallana, who has been sidelined this season with a thigh problem, was also part of the 23-man squad which travelled but is likely to be a sub.
Klopp said: “He is getting nearer but we need him for the rest of the season and not for the next weeks.”
Sevilla’s Danish defender Simon Kjaer and the rest of his family are all big Liverpool fans.
The teams drew 2-2 at Anfield in September and his dad, Jorn, said: “I was full of emotion.
“As a lifelong supporter, when I saw Simon run on to the pitch for You’ll Never Walk Alone, I cried.”
