The AFCON thing was always a bit of a red herring for me. January is usually a busy month with lots of league games for all teams but this season has been different with only 3 league games in January for us and them, due to that friggin' international break at the end of January. Liverpool played Chelsea away on the 2nd Jan and Mane and Salah were present for that one before going out to the AFCON, so they were only ever going to miss 2 league games tops. Those games were Brentford at home and Palace away. Brentford's form has fallen off a cliff and we know Palace can be a tricky opponent but it depends on which Palace turns up. Either way, if you're Klopp and you could pick 2 games for Salah and Mane to miss, you'd take Brentford at home and Palace away as they should have more than enough to win those games without those two anyway and so it proved.