[article]“Just sign a centre-back. Anyone will do.”
It has been a familiar refrain among Liverpool supporters these past few weeks as the transfer window stays open amid the chilling feeling that a successful Premier League title defence might just be slipping away.
Liverpool’s current ‘centre-backs’ are doing just fine though.
Fabinho and Jordan Henderson played there again against Manchester United and barely put a foot wrong, with the league leaders surely more than a little frustrated that they didn’t put more pressure on a couple of midfielders until too late in the day.
The Brazilian has been excellent this season and now looks like a defender, but we all know that the reason Henderson is needed there is due to Joel Matip’s unreliability, with the Cameroonian needing to be leaned on because of the absences of Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez. You’re probably familiar with those.
But what isn’t really being discussed are the Premier League rules that have somewhat hamstrung Liverpool in terms of adding another centre-back to the squad this month.
We’d all probably have gone out and signed someone, anyone by now if this was Football Manager, as a more experienced head would be an upgrade on Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams as centre-back cover. But who do you sign and, crucially, where are they from?
When Van Dijk suffered his injury at Goodison Park on October 17 it was 12 days after the closure of the ‘summer’ transfer window for international deals, and less than 24 hours after an extended domestic window had shut.
Then on October 20, clubs were required to submit their Premier League squad lists of 25 players aged 21 and over, with no more than 17 of those allowed to be ‘non-homegrown’, i.e. not registered to an English or Welsh club for three seasons before they turned 21.
With Van Dijk facing an extended stay on the sidelines, and perhaps out for the whole season, Liverpool removed him from their list to leave their main squad at 24, with 16 non-homegrown players.
Clubs then have a secondary list of under-21 players which can be as long as they want and can contain youngsters of any nationality (pre-Brexit anyway), with Liverpool’s including the likes of defenders Williams, Dutchman Sepp van den Berg and French youth international Billy Koumetio.
But Van Dijk’s absence from the main list doesn’t mean his season is automatically over.
Clubs resubmit new lists after the closure of the January transfer window, with last season’s coming on February 6. Amid suggestions that the Dutchman is ahead of schedule on his recovery, it will be a similar date this year which will confirm if he could play a league match for the Reds again this season.
As it stands, Liverpool’s failure to move for a centre-back to take their squad back up to 25 players can be viewed as them being hopeful that Van Dijk could return before the end of the campaign. And moreover, the fact that a spot has been left open for him amid the prospect of returning might be serving as a psychological boost for the Dutchman during his rehab.
If Van Dijk does get added back into the squad, that takes Liverpool to the full complement of 25 players with the maximum 17 allowed who aren’t homegrown.
That means that if Jurgen Klopp, Michael Edwards and his team wanted to bring in a non-homegrown centre-back this month as well as adding Van Dijk back into the squad then they would have to drop a player and bar them from playing in the Premier League again this season.
This is something that might sound simple in practice or on a computer game, but is fraught with issues in real life.
Of the current 16 non-homegrown players the most expendable is probably goalkeeper Adrian.
The Spaniard’s contract is up in the summer when he will leave, and he’s recently been usurped as Alisson’s deputy by homegrown squad member Caoimhin Kelleher, perhaps with this issue in mind.
Kelleher has done well when called upon, but with Alisson’s frustrating fondness for an injury liable to hit at any time, the worry over what could then happen if Kelleher wasn’t available too must surely have been calculated by Liverpool’s data-driven, risk assessing team behind the scenes.
Adrian looked devoid of confidence in his latter Liverpool appearances, but would you really not trust him over an untried teenager from the under-21 list in the wake of a goalkeeping injury crisis? Big clubs sign experienced older heads like Scott Carson, Lee Grant and Andy Lonergan for exactly this reason.
Moreover, it doesn’t really seem like Klopp’s style to ruthlessly bin a player who has been part of this Liverpool journey. Adrian played in 11 Premier League games for the Reds last season, and the club won them all. He more than deserved his winners’ medal.
Other potential candidates to be cut from the list could be Xherdan Shaqiri and Divock Origi, two players who Liverpool have been open to selling for quite some time.
But with football still grappling from the ramifications of Covid-19 and no clubs moving heaven and earth to make big transfers, no suitable bids have been forthcoming for the players. Klopp also still thinks enough of them to start Shaqiri against Manchester United and bring Origi off the bench.
So with all this in mind, the solution is simple right? Just sign an English player?
If Liverpool did that, and the player was over 21, then they could add him to the list as well as Van Dijk but they would have still have to drop a player, with the eight homegrown members of the list now in play too.
One of those is of course Gomez, and with less known about his recovery then it could be that he is removed from the list when it comes to be resubmitted if Liverpool think he won’t play again this season.
Or maybe he’s also closer to a return than people think.
If he stays on the list, there are other options over who to remove.
Joe Hardy, the 22-year-old forward signed from Brentford’s B team last January, is one of the eight homegrown players, as is Phillips, who at 23 is older than many think and was seemingly on the cusp of leaving for the Championship in the last window. He’s very much needed now though.
But with all this in mind, which homegrown centre-back could Liverpool target in the transfer window anyway?
Brighton ’s Ben White is a name often mentioned, but the Seagulls are likely to ask for a huge fee given Liverpool’s situation and their own relegation fight. English players always come at a premium, and in a Covid transfer market that could be a dangerous move.
So Liverpool ‘just signing a centre-back’ isn’t the simple task many would have you believe, with the club’s failure to do so perhaps a sign that they retain hopes for their best two defenders to return this season.
Time will tell over Van Dijk and Gomez, but if they could get one or both back before the end of the campaign then Liverpool might just become a different animal in the congested title race.
The task for now, as it has been all season, is to remain alive within it.
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