Jurgen Klopp was named as the “main”reason for Sadio Mane choosing to move to Bayern Munich instead of extending his six-year stay at Liverpool.

The claim was made by former footballer and pundit Trevor Sinclair. 

Sinclair, speaking on UK radio show talkSPORT, said: “This Sadio Mane transfer is obviously universally accepted now he’s left Liverpool Football Club as a club legend. But I keep on hearing some fans and ex-players saying ‘I don’t know why he’s left?’ Let me tell you why he’s left.

“One, I don’t think he’s ever been lauded and appreciated at the football club like Virgil van Dijk or Mo Salah. Two, the fact that Liverpool let his contract go down to the last year kind of suggests that that’s how they felt about him.”

Sinclair added: “Three, I think the main thing is that Jurgen Klopp lost him when he came out and belittled the AFCON tournament which his manager (for Senegal) Aliou Cisse had to come out and defend the AFCON and said ‘you were coming second until our African players started playing for you’.

“Mane is a man of principles, you’ve seen him buy hospitals, buy schools and all the rest of it in his home town of Senegal and it’s for these reasons I feel Sadio Mane’s thought, ‘you know what, I’m going, I’m leaving the club’. He’s had a good time, he’s been a club legend but I don’t think he could play on after that.”

Mane completed a move to the Bundesliga giants earlier this week after both clubs managed to thrash out a deal worth up to £35m

The departure of the 30-year-old Senegal international after six incredible seasons at Anfield has sparked plenty of conversations in the media as many have questioned the thought process behind the Reds allowing a player who was so instrumental to last season’s quadruple bid to leave, especially after he reinvented himself as a centre-forward toward the back end of the campaign.