Liverpool allowed the towering centre-back to leave the club this summer.
When speaking to Sky Sports on their Gillette Soccer Saturday programme yesterday, Reds legend Phil Thompson was highly critical of Jürgen Klopp’s decision to sell Mamadou Sakho to Crystal Palace during the summer transfer window, claiming that the Frenchman was the club’s best defender before being allowed to leave.
The former Paris Saint-Germain man joined the Eagles on transfer deadline day, for a fee believed to be in the region of £26 million, after a tumultuous four year period at Anfield.
The 27-year-old showed glimpses of his quality during his time with Liverpool, but his off-field antics were enough to convince Klopp that he had no future on Merseyside.
Thompson told Sky Sports how the Reds boss has cut his nose off to spite his face, however, highlighting how none of the current crop of defenders at Liverpool match Sakho’s quality:
“Our best defender at the start of this season has been allowed to leave. Mamadou Sakho was our best defender. He was a warrior, a fighter, a battler – all those things and you saw it at Crystal Palace last season. He was like that at Liverpool. I know there’s fallouts in football all the time but somewhere along the line you can’t cut off your nose to spite your face. He should have made up with the boy, ban him for three or four months and then bring him back in. Lovren is a good player, Matip’s a good player, Klavan too, but they’re not battlers.”
Mamadou Sakho of Crystal Palace
Whilst the Merseyside outfit have been exciting to watch this season, their defensive displays have been nothing more than incompetent, with their tally of 11 goals conceded in the Premier League being the worst record inside the top 15 in the division.
Maybe Thompson has a point. Selling Sakho really did seem to be more about making a statement, rather than doing what was best for the team.
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