Liverpool transfer news: Jurgen Klopp tells Kop bad boy Mamadou Sakho to leave Anfield
Centre-back failed a drugs test and was sent home from pre-season tour for acting up
MAMADOU SAKHO has been told to find himself a club if he wants to play first-team football this season.
The Liverpool defender hasn’t played a competitive game since he was found to have taken a banned dietary pill in a drugs test in April.
He was subsequently sent home from the Reds pre-season tour of America after three breaches of club rules.
Sakho has since been training at Melwood and there have been no further problems with discipline.
But Jurgen Klopp wants proof that he is in the right mental state to show he can have a long-term Anfield future.
And that means he will have to play elsewhere to prove it to the Kop boss before he can force his way into first-team plans again.
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West Brom were interested in taking him on a permanent basis for around £20 million, but Klopp is unwilling to sell him – and Sakho was not keen on the transfer.
Yet the French centre back is equally aware that he needs to find a loan move before tomorrow’s deadline, or face a season sitting on the bench at best.
Klopp started the season with Dejan Lovren and Ragnar Klavan as his preferred central defensive duo.
Joel Matip got the nod at Spurs on Saturday now he is fully fit, and big things are expected of rookie Joe Gomez, who is close to recovering from an Achilles' tendon injury.
Sakho picked up a similar knock before the start f the season, but would not have featured anyway.
That came after he nearly missed the flight to the USA for the summer tour, then missed a treatment session and capped it by being late for a club meal.