The one player each top 6 Premier League club can't afford to lose to injury

Liverpool

Sadio Mane

Sadio Mane started the season in an explosive fashion for Liverpool, scoring in his first three outings of the season as the Reds made a positive start to the campaign. Things started to go wrong, however, when the attacker clattered Manchester City keeper Ederson with a high boot. City may have been 1-0 up at the time, but Liverpool were on top.

Mane’s red card was a watershed moment in their season. They went on to lose the game 5-0 and have struggled since then, with the Senegal star having served a two-game ban before picking up a hamstring injury that he will return from after the international break.

No sector of the Liverpool side has been spared from criticism. The defence may have been targeted early in the campaign, but since Mane’s injury, a lack of clinical finishing in the Reds’ ranks has come under fire. He provides that killer instinct to his side, having netted at the rate of almost once every two games last term in the Premier League.

Signed from Southampton in 2016, he has proven to be something of a revelation at Anfield – one of the major pluses of Jurgen Klopp’s first season in charge.

The champagne football of the early weeks of the campaign has gone and their defensive problems have been laid incredibly bare. Jurgen Klopp needs his best player back.