Liverpool must sign players in January, says Jamie Carragher, despite Reds spending £446m in summer window
Liverpool must still add to their squad in January despite spending £446m in the summer transfer window, says Sky Sports‘ Jamie Carragher.
The Reds brought in seven senior players including Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz for nine-figure transfer fees, but find themselves eight points off the Premier League summit following their 3-0 defeat at Manchester City before the international break.
Inside: Liverpool
Watch ‘Inside: Liverpool’ an hour-long special programme assessing the champions’ start to the season at 7pm on Thursday, simulcast on both Sky Sports News and Sky Sports Premier League, with live commentary on the Sky Sports website and App
Questions have been raised about integrating so many players at once and the challenge of fitting in Isak and fellow new arrival Hugo Ekitike, who has outperformed the Swedish forward to date despite costing barely half his price tag.
Liverpool have also looked shaky at the back, with captain Virgil van Dijk copping high-profile flak from BBC pundit Wayne Rooney, while collectively the club has the seventh-worst defensive record across the Premier League this season.
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Watch Liverpool’s 3-0 defeat at Man City before the international break, which left them eight points off the top
Speaking ahead of the broadcast of Inside: Liverpool, a one-off documentary on Sky Sports Premier League this Thursday from 7pm featuring past players including Carragher, Emile Heskey and David James, plus insight and analysis from Sky Sports’ Vinny O’Connor and Mark McAdam, Carragher identified where his former side’s summer of spending had fallen short.
“Liverpool need to spend in January, they need to buy a centre-back, they should have bought a centre-back in the summer,” he said.
“They didn’t, and then the one centre-back they did buy, Leoni, a young Italian player, looked fantastic in the game that he played, a Carabao Cup game. Unfortunately, he got an ACL injury, so we won’t see him until next season.
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“Liverpool are probably one injury away at centre-back from really derailing the season, so they have to go to the market in January.
“I do feel that they did need to bring that number of players in during the summer. I can go through the team of last season – [Kostas] Tsimikas, the manager didn’t really have confidence in him, so you needed to buy a left-back.
“[Jarrell] Quansah moved on, the manager didn’t really have confidence in him. They brought a young player in, Leoni, but still they need another body.
“They had to replace Trent [Alexander-Arnold]. Harvey Elliott moved on, but again, the manager didn’t have much confidence in him, so we went and bought another No 10 in [Florian] Wirtz.
Inside: Liverpool
Thursday 20th November 7:00pm
“[Darwin] Nunez, the manager’s never had confidence in him, so we just went and brought in [Alexander] Isak, and obviously we’ve got the tragic situation of Diogo Jota.
“But in terms of spending the big money on Isak and Ekitike, who were both playing in the same position, both in the same summer, that was a little one where I was scratching my head a little bit.
“When you’ve spent that type of money, and it just becomes one or the other… It doesn’t feel very Liverpool-like to me, or certainly the way we’ve conducted our transfer business in the last few years.”
Carra: Liverpool may turn attention to Champions League
With the Premier League already a long shot, having lost more games in their first 11 matches than in the entirety of last season, Liverpool may look to utilise the Champions League as their best hopes of winning elite silverware this season, Carragher said.
The ex-Liverpool centre-back, who lifted the trophy in Istanbul in 2005 and reached another final two years later with the club, feels the competition has become a passion project of head coach Arne Slot, after Liverpool were only stopped by eventual winners PSG in last season’s competition.
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Roy Keane outlined the state of Liverpool’s ‘crisis’ after their defeat at the Etihad Stadium
He said: “I think Slot has a little obsession with the Champions League. He speaks about PSG a lot last season, on the back of losing to them.
“He speaks so well of them, he almost admired losing to that team and the fact that they went on to win the tournament, and the way they played in the final.
“I think he loves managers whose teams play that type of football, that’s how he envisages his team playing at their absolute best.
“That’s why on the back of last season, talking about Liverpool having control, he wanted more flair, you can see that with the players he’s brought in. But when you spend that much money, you have to be one of the favourites for the Champions League.
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“I actually bumped into Arne Slot in the summer when he was away, we were both on holiday, and he was there with his family, and I thanked him for what he’d done for Liverpool last season in terms of winning the league. And he introduced me as a Champions League winner to his wife and his kids.
“And I’d almost feel like he thinks ‘that’s our next step’. I could feel it the way he said it, we’ve won the league, but we want to win the Champions League, it was that type of thing.
“And it just stuck with me in his head; you can feel he desperately wants it, as all top managers do but when you’re a manager of Liverpool, the club is synonymous with the Champions League, so we have to go close.”
Watch Inside: Liverpool on Sky Sports Premier League from 7pm on Thursday.
