Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has warned opposition teams planning to target star duo Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane.

Klopp has been increasingly frustrated in recent weeks, when his stars - and in particular Mane and Salah - have been singled out for some serious rough stuff.

“It is just that…the headline is: 'we pay back with football'. So whatever we do, we pay them back with football," he said.

“I have told them, we pay back with football. It has been going on a long time - for sure, for much longer it was a thing, even when it was not obvious to the outside."

On Mane, asked if he has spoken to the Senegalese, he said: “Oh yeah we did. You can see it in games, they go for him because they want to wind him up, even if it is not that obvious.

“It is two different things - sometimes opponents will be really aggressive in games. Against Flamengo in the Club World Cup final, Rafinha wanted to go for him after Sadio had caused him some problems when we played Bayern.

“From the first second, he was really hard and having a discussion with him. Fouling him and telling him to get up, these kinds of things."

He added: “We all need emotions obviously, and sometimes we control them better and sometimes less and yes we have these problems of course. But that was not about that. Against Arsenal. It was a normal challenge.

“Against Atletico, it was obvious they had a red card and in the next situation a player went down and three or four somersaults to make sure there was a yellow card. The same with Real Madrid."