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Why Sakho should have left Liverpool on loan

by JAMES PEARCE

Mamadou Sakho should have taken Jurgen Klopp’s advice.

The French defender should have accepted that a spell away from Liverpool was required in order to prove himself to the manager after his recent indiscretions.

Instead Sakho has risked angering Klopp further by digging his heels in and snubbing loan offers from the likes of Stoke, West Brom and Besiktas.

Now recovered from an Achilles injury, Sakho needs to play in order to get his career back on track after a turbulent four months. However, that won’t be happening for Klopp’s side any time soon.

Dejan Lovren, Joel Matip, Ragnar Klavan and Lucas Leiva are all ahead of him in the pecking order. Joe Gomez is also on the comeback trail. Maybe injuries or loss of form will lead to Klopp turning to Sakho at some stage over the coming months.

But with no European football on offer this season, Sakho has taken a massive gamble by staying put. He faces an uphill battle to force his way back in and he can forget about returning to the France set-up while he’s stuck on the sidelines.

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Sakho has made some poor decisions over the past six months. He wouldn’t have found himself accused by UEFA of failing a drugs test if he hadn’t broken club rules by taking a substance without the knowledge of Liverpool’s medical staff.

When he was subsequently cleared of a doping offence, he simply needed to knuckle down. Instead he annoyed Klopp to such an extent with his poor timekeeping and bad attitude during the pre-season tour of America that he was sent home in disgrace,

Klopp decided that some time apart would benefit everyone - giving Sakho the chance to improve his fitness by playing regularly before returning to Liverpool.

The player didn’t agree and turned down a loan.

Not for the first time, he may end up ruing the fact he’s gone against his manager’s wishes.

Why Sakho’s got a right to stay at Liverpool

by ANDY KELLY

I am “happy to stay as a Scouser”.

That was Mamadou Sakho as he extended his Liverpool contract until 2020. That was just last September. And that was when Brendan Rodgers had left him out of the Reds team in the first couple of weeks of the season.

The fans - and the media of course - lapped it up as we generally do with the charismatic Frenchman. Give him a paint brush in Bootle or a charity mission in Africa, he has a knack of (rightly) winning hearts and minds.

Eleven months on from that new deal though and Sakho’s Liverpool career appears to be hanging by a thread. Jurgen Klopp’s heart and mind doesn’t seem so sure.

The club wanted the 26-year-old to go out on loan to prove he had a future at Anfield, to play regularly and show his professionalism.

But he’s ignored the offers and is remaining at Anfield to try to fight for his place.

I think he’s got the right to do so.

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Contracts may not be worth the paper they’re written on these days but we’re quick enough to criticise players when they want away. They’re a commitment from both sides, even if an increasingly loose and expedient one.

Of course you could argue he’s no-one to blame but himself. Taking a fat burner without the club’s permission - even if subsequently cleared of a doping offence by UEFA - saw him miss key games at the end of Liverpool’s season, not to mention the Euros. Klopp can hardly have been impressed.

That will have only been exacerbated by his actions on the US tour, leading to his expulsion home.

Klopp was clearly angry but he himself described the indiscretions as “not serious”.

Sakho hasn’t appeared on the pitch since so any developments to change that position can only have been off the field.

Only Sakho and Klopp will know the full situation but the player clearly feels that whatever happened is not serious enough as to be irredeemable.

I’m not someone who completely buys into the cult of Sakho, for me a strong defender who still needs to improve his poise and decision-making. Some of those better decisions clearly need to be off the pitch too.

But Liverpool would surely be a stronger defensive squad with Sakho still available to it.

Ragnar Klavan and Lucas Leiva are the current options if injuries strike but there are plenty of scenarios where a Sakho/Matip combination would feel like a stronger partnership than Lovren/Matip to me anyway.

I’ll leave the last word to Sakho, again speaking as he committed himself to Liverpool for another five years last September.

“I will keep working because I am a Liverpool soldier and when Liverpool need me, I try to give my best.”