John Aldridge has suggested that Liverpool made a mistake in not signing a replacement for Dejan Lovren in the wake of the devastating news about Virgil van Dijk.
Van Dijk was ruled out with a long-term knee injury earlier this week and as a result has been omitted from Liverpool’s Premier League squad for the rest of the season.
The Reds went into this season with one centre-back less than how they entered the 2019-20 campaign after selling Lovren to Zenit St Petersburg for £10 million.
Manager Jurgen Klopp has previously defended the decision to not sign a central defender by claiming that Fabinho – who has played there twice for Liverpool – can drop back to cover if needs be.
But club legend Aldridge has told The Echo that he views the failure to sign somebody as ‘a bit unfortunate’.
He said: “It’s a bit unfortunate now that we let Dejan Lovren go because even though you always felt he had the odd mistake in him, he would have been useful to have as back up but we haven’t and will have to make the best of it.”
This is a huge test of Liverpool’s title credentials now.
Klopp’s side cruised to the title last season by winning a whopping 99 points, but even some fans of the Anfield club will admit that they had their best players available for virtually the entire campaign.
This season will be different and it’s fascinating to see how Klopp weathers this Van Dijk-less storm until January.
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