Add into the mix Andrew Robertson and we\u2019re suddenly looking like we\u2019ve got genuine options in the left-back slot that are not only varied but also reasonably experienced. People act as if the former Hull man is a young kid, but he\u2019s twenty-three and has already made over 150 appearances for his numerous clubs. He\u2019s likely to be second-choice to Moreno more often than not, but his purchase allows Klopp to move Milner back into the midfield and put pressure on Moreno to perform. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d be keen to see a defence of Alexander-Arnold on one side and Robertson on the other going into the Champions League knockout stages, but it will be more than decent enough for the majority of home league games, for example.<\/p>\n
I think Klopp believes that Lovren and Klavan are better options than most Liverpool fans would be quick to admit, so the manager is confident they\u2019ll get us through until January. Will we be able to bring the Dutchman in from Southampton then? Maybe. It\u2019s tricky to tell right now. Joel Matip is probably the most reliable central defender we have, though even he is prone to a few dodgy moments every now and then. You can spit your dummy out over that if you want to, but the reality is that very few defenders in the entirety of football are world class every single game. Even Jamie Carragher, who Liverpool supporters quite rightly revere, was put on his arse by Thierry Henry a few times! Gomez is back up to Matip but the day we watch a Gomez-Lovren partnership will be a hairy one indeed.<\/p>\n
mooinblack \/ shutterstock.com<\/p><\/div>\n
Seven clean sheets in our last nine Premier League matches suggest that our defence is absolutely nowhere near as bad as some people think. It\u2019s not as strong as most of us would like, however, so every goal conceded will likely be catastrophes in the eyes of many. With the addition of Champions League football, we\u2019re going to face a huge number of games in between now and the next transfer window. I agree with Klopp that this defence will be able to cope, but one injury and heads will fall off all over the place. Keep your fingers crossed for a record fitness level until we can bring in reinforcements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week I wrote a column looking at Liverpool\u2019s transfer business in the summer and how I felt things were a lot more positive than the general mood in the fan base suggested. I\u2019m not going to go over that old territory here, so if you want to know what I thought then do give that piece a read. Over the weekend I have been thinking about where our various purchases leave us in terms of squad strength. We\u2019ve not only got the Premier League campaign to contend with but we\u2019ll also be doing battle in the Champions League, FA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1020,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions\/1020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}