If Liverpool don’t win the Premier League this season fans will rightly point towards the injury of Virgil van Dijk as the turning point for their season.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand how a long-term injury to arguably the world’s best defender can derail a season, and while every supporter will want to remain positive, it’s impossible to deny that the Reds’ defence hasn’t looked a little more ropey since the Netherlands captain went down.
Jurgen Klopp has been forced into chopping and changing his backline since van Dijk did his ACL against Everton, and his problems were only exacerbated by recent injuries to Fabinho and Joe Gomez.
Since then we’ve seen Joel Matip, Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams all attempt to fill van Dijk’s boots, but this could all have been avoided if Liverpool didn’t sell one man this summer.
Surprisingly, we’re not talking about Dejan Lovren, who was sold to Zenit before the beginning of this season, we’re talking about Ki-Jana Hoever.
The Dutch defender may be a right-back by trade these days, but he’s also more than capable of filling in at centre-half, and that’s why keeping him on could have come in handy.
Klopp was clearly a big fan of the youngster during his time at the club, labelling him as ‘sensational’ and ‘fantastic’, but for one reason or another he let him go.
The Dutch youngster also worked closely with van Dijk during his time at the club, going on record to state how lucky he felt to learn from the former PFA Player of the Year.
If those sessions with van Dijk taught Hoever anything, he would have been able to slot in quite well in the starting XI.
Now, we’re not going to argue that Hoever would have come in and fixed Liverpool’s defensive problems in the absence of van Dijk and Fabinho.
However, it is worth noting that he was ahead of the likes of Phillips and Williams in the pecking order when he left, and having him as an option would have provided more stability at the back as Klopp may not have felt the need to chop and change so much.
Unfortunately, Hoever was sold and Liverpool’s worst-case scenario at centre-back as come to fruition, and now, we can only wonder what could have been if the Reds hadn’t let the teenager go.
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