It was reported earlier this week that Liverpool were willing to listen to loan offers for Mamadou Sakho; this, as expected, was met with mass confusion about why the club would allow a senior member to leave, especially one whose position occupies a weak point in the Reds’ team.
The reason for this apparent loan is for Sakho to regain fitness and establish himself again but you have to take a good look at yourself in the mirror if you think that is the genuine reason for Sakho’s departure, it seems more of a case of Jurgen Klopp cutting off his nose to spite his face.
Firstly, let’s take a look at why a loan makes no sense, the other centre-backs at the club are Dejan Lovren, Joel Matip, Ragnar Klavan and Joe Gomez. Whilst Lovren is our most established defender, he is still suspect to a mistake or poor performance, his recent partner Klavan is a backup and nothing more; his pre-season form was rewarded with starts in the first two Premier League games of the season but as a consistent starter, he is mid-table standard at best.
Whilst Matip showed he can be a good defender in the Bundesliga at Schalke, its risky to rely as heavily on him as Klopp is. Prone to an injury too, a knock to Matip and all of a sudden we’re down to three centre-backs should Sakho leave; with one of them being young Joe Gomez who can’t catch a break.
The claim that a move can help his recovery is another excuse to push Sakho out the door, does Klopp believe that his own club doctors are too inadequate to push Sakho back to 100%? Of course he doesn’t, plus the fact that Danny Ings and Gomez (two players who sustained worse injuries during Klopp’s reign last season) stayed around Melwood to recover shows he doesn’t have this consistent ethos.
Klopp has said himself that he doesn’t know if he will spend any more money in the transfer window and whilst four centre backs seems like enough for a team not competing in Europe, the standard is nowhere near good enough.
I still believe that Sakho is our best defender, he’s strong, good in the air and his tackling is incredible. Say what you want about his passing but the stats don’t lie, he is a good passer of the ball. There’s a difference between being a good passer and looking comfortable on the ball, Lovren falls into the category of looking comfortable on the ball but his passing is no better than Sakho’s.
The man is a natural-born leader and when he plays you can tell he puts his all into every game; something that I don’t think is as obvious in other squad players. Whether you buy into it or not, Sakho is a popular figure on the Kop. Obviously he isn’t without his flaws as shown recently by being sent home from the tour of the U.S but not many players could go through a drug scandal and then a behaviour scandal like he has and still have the majority of fans behind him.
Like I said there is more to this story than Sakho’s game time, I feel like Klopp is trying to set an example to the rest of the squad that nothing but perfect is good enough but I feel like he could go about it in a better way.
If you want to stamp your authority down and make an example of a player then drop him down to the reserves, make him work his way back up. That way it motivates your player to improve and it motivates the squad around you to keep improving so that they keep their place in the team, instead Klopp is leaving his squad very bare with no real competition for places whilst at the same improving another team in the Premier League by giving them an established centre-back.
The story is that the club want to get rid of Sakho for just the season, but in reality ,once he goes through the Anfield exit door, I fear he will never come back through.
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