Jamie Carragher demands Liverpool January transfer that Reds ‘have to’ complete | Football | Sport

Jamie Carragher has urged Liverpool to bolster their defence with a new centre-back in January, despite the club’s £450million squad revamp last summer that saw eight new senior players join. The Reds shattered the British transfer record twice to secure Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak, while also splashing out on Hugo Ekitike, Milos Kerkez, Jeremie Frimpong, Giorgi Mamardashvili and Giovanni Leoni.

Liverpool had also set their sights on Crystal Palace’s Marc Guehi, but a £35m move for the England international was thwarted at the last minute on transfer deadline day by the Eagles. The Reds are still keen on the defender, whose contract expires at the end of the season, although it is unclear whether they will renew their pursuit in January. Currently, Liverpool have only three senior centre-backs available – Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate and Joe Gomez – after Leoni sustained a season-ending ACL injury on his debut.

However, both Konate and Gomez face uncertain futures at Anfield, with the Frenchman’s contract due to expire at the end of the season and the Englishman linked with a move away last summer, having caught the eye of AC Milan and Brighton and Hove Albion before Guehi’s transfer fell through.

With Van Dijk turning 35 next summer and entering the final year of his contract with the Reds, Liverpool will also need to plan for life post-captaincy.

The Reds have endured a torrid time at the back this campaign, shipping 17 goals across 11 Premier League fixtures whilst managing merely four clean sheets throughout the entire season.

Having suffered defeat in seven of their previous 10 encounters, they presently occupy eighth position in the standings and find themselves trailing table-toppers Arsenal by eight points.

Carragher, who also acknowledged on the Overlap that his former side face the prospect of missing out on Champions League qualification unless they recruit a centre-half in January, has implored Liverpool to bolster their squad when the transfer window reopens or risk their season spiralling further out of control.

“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 on Inside: Liverpool, a one-off documentary on Sky Sports Premier League.

“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.

“Liverpool are probably one injury away at centre-back from really derailing the season, so they have to go to the market in January.”

Liverpool remain linked with a potential swoop for Guehi, whilst they are also purportedly keen on Antoine Semenyo – with the Bournemouth striker understood to possess a £65m release clause in his deal that can be triggered in January. Should the Reds strengthen their squad in January, it would likely push their seasonal expenditure towards the £500m milestone.

However, whilst Liverpool’s summer spending spree has become ammunition for their critics amid a faltering Premier League title defence, Carragher maintains the Merseyside club had no alternative but to be so proactive given the exodus of players.

“I do feel that they did need to bring that number of players in during the summer,” he said. “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.

“[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.”