Injured Sakho should not be the scapegoat

 “I really want to apologise to the club, the supporters and every person who felt offended when I left the stadium this afternoon.”

Mamadou Sakho is now injured. It is highly unlikely Brendan is not telling the truth given that the French doctors would’ve assessed Sakho’s injury as standard protocol before deciding he was unavailable for the national team,

Whether you believe Brendan or not, Sakho has not started the season well. An awkward touch that led to the corner that led to the key goal against Villa. A misplaced header that led to the third goal versus West Ham. He has taken a lot of criticism in the media.

However he has not been the only Liverpool defender to make mistakes this season. Skrtel’s stock rose a touch during his absence, but most forgot that many were crying out for Sakho to be paired with Lovren when Skrtel was playing.

Lovren has arguably been Liverpool’s most error prone defender. He has lost players multiple times at corners that have led to goals, he’s dived into closing players down exposing the team to runs in behind, he hasn’t been as vocal as he was thought to be and he conceded the equalising penalty versus West Brom (even if it was outside the area).

Kolo Toure has been Kolo Toure. In his one start for the Reds against Middlesbrough he started in characteristically mixed fashion: lumping the ball up-field under little pressure and mis-controlling in dangerous positions. He settled to then improve as the game continued but ended the 90 minutes conceding a penalty with a needlessly rash tackle in the last minute. Sakho had an incident free game, even scoring a confident penalty straight into the corner.

Despite this being Toure’s only start, playing the full 120 minutes and making plenty of errors, Sakho was the one who was dropped from the squad for the Merseyside Derby. This after Sakho was even asked to give an interview to LFC prior to the Derby, where he said how much he was looking forward to being involved!

How is that fair? Well it’s not. But the manner in which Sakho reacted was not remotely acceptable. What if Lovren had become injured in the warm up and Sakho was needed? Regardless of whether you agree with the manager’s decision or not, you have to respect your fellow players and the club.

However, Sakho apologised very quickly, unlike Suarez who took a long period of sulking and dropping from training before he was reintegrated after Arsenal’s failed transfer attempt,

It’s worth pointing out that Sakho is perhaps the only one of our four central defenders who defends well at corners and set pieces. His weaknesses lie in other areas. All of our centrebacks have international experience and individually play well for their countries, the main issue lies in that they don’t play collectively well for Liverpool and that they are far more exposed given our style of play.

It’s not easy being a Liverpool defender at the best of times, less so when our Captain Fantastic has had some very poor games defensively and other key players who keep the ball so well, like Coutinho, still haven’t hit form.

Sakho is France’s 1st choice centre-back. Ahead of Mangala & Koscielny, and when you see him play for the national team you understand why. He is calm, assured and it’s clear that he has the full faith of the manager. It looks like he’s a confidence player, not ideal for a defender, but it was similar at PSG.

When he was trusted by the manager he rose to Captain the team as a teenager. When Ancelotti arrived and didn’t trust him, errors and uncertainty grew into his game and he fell increasingly out of favour leading to his move away.

People forget that Sakho played very well in many big results last season, including that wonderful 5-0 at White Hart Lane. But when Sakho makes a couple of mistakes his touch and passing can collapse as the confidence drains from him.

I’m not saying Sakho should be a guaranteed starter given his present form. Only that his form is at a similar level to other defenders and that he shouldn’t be ostracised after his only moment of poor attitude since he arrived at the club.

To Brendan’s great credit he spoke to Sakho, accepted his apology and told the media that everyone would move on. He’s managed that well, as he often does.

As Liverpool fans we’d much rather the focus be on fixing the overall defensive problems that are plaguing us this season.

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