Jજેrgen Klopp says it is too early to think about signing a Virgil Van Dijk replacement as Liverpool Bose have defended their decision to go into the season with just three senior center-backs.
The Reds sold Dejan Lvren in the transfer window and chose to sign a replacement directly before the deadline earlier this month.
As a result, he left the champion with only Joel Matip, JG Gomez and Van Dijk able to play him as the fourth choice of the crisis with available defensive midfielder Fabinho.
Van Dijk’s season was likely just two down for a campaign ahead of the club, after suffering an ACL loss from Jordan Pickford’s reckless lounge in Saturday’s Merseyside derby.
And his defensive difficulties worsened when it turned out that the mother had not traveled to Amsterdam for the Champions League opener against Ajax on Wednesday night.
After being scanned on a muscle complaint on Saturday, Matip was going home as a precaution with his first 90-minute draw in a year from 2-2 on Saturday.
Liverpool’s boss Klopp, however, was adamant that keeping their numbers in order was the right course of action and rejected the idea that he had already thought about who could go to Anfield in the January window.
One Spikey said to Klopp: “Anyone interested in this game tomorrow? Or shall we talk about it all night?
“Yeah, we went to the center as three center-backs and a Fabinoho cover. And some little kids as a cover. That’s usually a pretty good number.
“Sometimes, it’s hard to be four world-class center-backs where they’re usually one-sided, too expensive. One of them doesn’t play long, long and it’s very difficult.
“It’s not a situation where you’ll turn around a lot. If someone thinks we’ve made a mistake in the transfer market, and I think Jamie is already in jail, or whatever … there are some reasons why they aren’t. Do this job and make it work [as analyst].
“I don’t always have a solution to the problem.”
Klopp conceded that the tightness behind the center was far from ideal, but the Reds boss supported his team to face as Fabinho prepared to step into the role vacated in Ajax by Max Tip.
“Yeah, that’s not perfect,” Klopp said. “Joel Matip isn’t here either, so he’s not perfect.
“But that’s our situation and we have to deal with it. We’ll see how we deal with it. We’re still a little bit sensitive to the situation that you’re not clear on.”
“At the moment we put you in a completely different mood. The first question people ask now is ‘What do you do in the transfer market?’
“Since yesterday (Monday) we have known that we do not have a vice-captain and the best center-half in the world has not been playing for us for a long time. We will see how long it lasts.
“We are working on solutions for now. From a certain moment we will try to find solutions for the future, but I don’t know how they will see this moment.”
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