Jurgen Klopp has given his take on whether Liverpool need a new midfielder after Thiago Alcantara’s latest injury.
Thiago was forced off 51 minutes into Liverpool’s 2-2 draw with Fulham on Saturday afternoon. And speaking to liverpoolfc.com after the game, Klopp said that The Reds won’t make an addition just for the sake of it.
“Look, a transfer must make sense now and in the long-term; we have midfielders, we have still enough midfielders,” said the boss. “It is not that we lack midfielders, but it’s just some of them are injured. This is not a good situation, I don’t like it at all, but we have to see how we react on that – but for sure not panicking.”
Liverpool were looking a little light when everyone was fit and available. Now Thiago has joined Curtis Jones and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain on the treatment table. With Naby Keita also ill and Tyler Morton out on-loan, alarm bells could soon start ringing.
Time to get serious in the market
Liverpool must now start to look seriously at whether to bring in a midfielder before the window closes in September.
It’s all well and good to point out the quantity of options, but injuries aren’t a new feature for this group of players.
Thiago has missed huge portions of game-time since joining the club two years ago. Keita, Oxlade-Chamberlain and even Jones are also players who seem to miss a raft of games as well.
Beyond that, Liverpool are relying on the legs of either veterans or rookies to supplement Fabinho and Jordan Henderson.
In some respects, Liverpool simply cannot afford to wait. As was the case with the centre-back situation of 2020/21, The Reds look one or two injuries away from a season potentially being derailed.
As things turned out, Ibrahima Konate was well worth the wait for Liverpool. But the fact still remains that Klopp practically lost a year of challenging for trophies due to a reluctance to enter the market.
No transfer is a given to succeed though, and maybe there isn’t an answer out there for Liverpool at the moment. But either way, today was another reminder that we’re once again treading on slightly thinning ice.
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