With Liverpool having spent upwards of £400M over the summer, including the blockbuster signings of two £100M+ players in Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak, there is some understandable eyebrow raising
at the idea that they could now also be big movers in the January window.
The November international break has seen a major uptick in chatter surrounding forward Antoine Semenyo, and speculation around a return for Marc Guehi—whose deadline day to the Reds memorably collapsed—has never gone away. Of the two, the latter seems a more obvious January target.
“Liverpool need to spend in January, they need to buy a centre-back, they should have bought a centre-back in the summer,” was former Liverpool centre-back and current Sky pundit Jamie Carragher’s take on the matter. “They didn’t, and the centre-back they did buy got an ACL injury.
“[Giovanni] Leoni, a young Italian player, looked fantastic in the game that he played—a Carabao Cup game. Unfortunately we won’t see him again until next season. So Liverpool are probably one injury away at centre-back from really derailing the season. They have to go to the market.”
Liverpool’s attacking depth appears rather well stocked, even if Wirtz is yet to find his form and Isak continues to try to catch up after missing out on a pre-season. Following Leoni’s injury, though, they have be left with just four fit senior centre halves in Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konaté, and Joe Gomez.
If Guehi was the target last summer and the club still want to bring him in at some point—with his deal expiring this season he will be available on a free at the end of the season—there does at least seem to be a solid case from a depth point of view for paying a fee to get him in sooner than later.
