Klavan: Mo Salah encouraged me to leave this summer

The Estonian arrived in 2016, knowing he’d never be a first-team regular, but performed well for two years before leaving for Cagliari before the start of this season.

With Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Dejan Lovren and Joel Matip at the club, it was a smart decision from Klavan to leave, in hindsight, as Cameroonian Matip can’t get a sniff of an appearance right now.

Klavan has started life in Italy well, but has admitted he’d have stayed at Liverpool if Mo Salah and Lucas Leiva hadn’t explained to him the benefits of a Serie A switch.

“I honestly did not intend to leave Liverpool, Klavan told Goal.

“I had received several offers from other European clubs, but it was not my intention to change clubs.

“But then Cagliari’s offer came and I had little doubt. I could measure myself in an important league like Serie A, which is a bit like the university of tactics.

“I spoke with Lucas Leiva and Mo Salah about this opportunity, my former team-mates at Liverpool, and they both described the championship as very interesting and competitive,” Klavan continued.

“In addition, here you live very well, the Italian lifestyle is fantastic and you eat very well! Injury aside I must say that these first few months have been wonderful.”

Klavan is impressing for Cagliari – and we’ll always remember him for his late winner against Burnley!

Liverpool’s centre-halves right now though are as good as they have been in decades – certainly the best partnership since Jamie Carragher and Sami Hyypia, anyway.

Van Dijk is arguably the best centre-back on the planet, while Gomez is improving week in, week out.

ARIS