LIVERPOOL -- Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insists his focus is now on ensuring Mamadou Sakho is in the right shape to play after the defender snubbed several opportunities to leave the club on loan in the transfer window.
Sources told ESPN FC in August that Liverpool's hierarchy had made it clear to Sakho, 26, that he must leave the club on a temporary basis in order to save his Reds career.
The France international proceeded to turn down offers to spend the 2016-17 season on loan at Stoke City, West Bromwich Albion and reportedly Besiktas, and now faces stiff competition for regular game time at Anfield.
Klopp wanted Sakho to head out on loan to get his career back on track after enduring a difficult period in which he was suspended by UEFA following an anti-doping violation, before later being cleared.
Sakho would then miss the start of the season due to an Achilles injury and was sent home from the club's preseason tour to the United States for disciplinary issues.
"We have to make Mama fit now," Klopp told a news conference on Thursday. "The situation in the transfer window is that you have to make decisions and you have to prepare situations after the window closes.
"You have to think about a few things and have to tell the players the truth. After the window closes, the situation is then like this and you cannot change the squad anymore. That's what I did -- not only with Mama -- and I told them [the players] what I think would be the best. Now the squad is like the squad is.
"In this moment it is about making Mama fit. He isn't after this long time with suspension and injury. Then we will see what happens. I have no idea what happens then because it's about who performs, how are our results -- all that stuff."
Klopp went on to dismiss the suggestion that Sakho needed to earn back the manager's trust.
"Who am I?" he said. "You don't have to gain my trust, I'm not blind. He couldn't play football for a long time and that's how it is. Then it makes sense after a long break that you think about how you can get him match time? Well that's difficult here.
"You have to speak to us before the window closes and that's the moment you can make decisions. That's what I did. I'm not silly enough to forget good performances and things like this. We will see. Now the squad is clear, we cannot change it. Now we have one more good centre-half -- all good. For him, it needs time."