Eight minutes. That is all it took for the defensive problems of Liverpool that have persisted since last season to announce themselves at Vicarage Road on Saturday. Stefano Okaka rose completely unopposed to head a corner past Simon Mignolet, a set-piece so poorly defended that the Reds’ backline barely touched the ball before it hit the net. The second goal was worse. Trent Alexander-Arnold could only hook Tom Cleverley’s cross against his own teammate Joel Matip, gifting Abdoulaye Doucoure a tap-in from point-blank range. Only the second time in 50 years had the Anfield club conceded two or more goals in the first half of their opening league game. Then, having fought back to lead 3-2, they surrendered an injury-time equaliser to finish 3-3, a result that flattered nobody and solved nothing.
Southampton have made clear that Virgil van Dijk is not for sale. The window closes in just over two weeks. The defensive problems of Liverpool that cost points in crucial moments last season demand an urgent, permanent solution. Here are five defenders who can provide it.
Craig Dawson — The Organiser Klopp Actually Needs
There is a temptation in moments like these to chase the marquee name and ignore the pragmatic solution sitting in plain sight. Craig Dawson is that pragmatic solution. The West Brom captain made 37 Premier League appearances last season, scoring 4 goals and contributing to 10 clean sheets, numbers that place him among the division’s more dependable centre-backs. But the raw numbers undersell the tactical case.
Across his Premier League career at the Hawthorns, Dawson has recorded a 69 percent tackle success rate, won 898 aerial battles and delivered 813 accurate long balls. That last figure matters specifically for Klopp’s system. A centre-back who can play accurate passes over distance in a 4-3-3 high press is not a luxury — it is a necessity. The defensive problems of Liverpool that were exposed so brutally on Saturday are partly a consequence of playing centre-backs who cannot initiate attacks quickly enough when the press wins the ball. Dawson can. He is not a long-term answer, but a short-term solution that would make Liverpool measurably harder to score against from this weekend.
Andreas Christensen — The Future Arriving Early
At 21, Andreas Christensen is a defender who covers first, reads the game second and only heads the ball when he has no better option available. This distinction matters. Too many young centre-backs rely on athleticism over intelligence. The Danish international, who spent two seasons on loan at Borussia Monchengladbach, operates on a different principle: position yourself correctly and the physical contest rarely becomes necessary.
The evidence from his two years in Germany backs this up. He earned the club’s Player of the Year award, ahead of club captain Granit Xhaka, and scored a decisive goal in a 4-2 Europa League victory away to Fiorentina that secured a 4-3 aggregate win. He is a player comfortable delivering in high-pressure European moments at just 20 years old. The most revealing detail from his time in Germany is not the individual honour, it is that Borussia Monchengladbach bid £14.25 million to make his loan permanent in the 2016 summer window and Chelsea refused. Clubs do not spend that kind of money on 20-year-old loanees unless they have seen something exceptional and Monchengladbach saw it. Sign him and Liverpool would be getting a defender who distributes by design and reads danger before it arrives, qualities Klopp has been trying to find at centre-back since he arrived at Anfield.
Davinson Sanchez — The Priority
If Klopp signs one defender before the window closes it must be Davinson Sanchez. Every other name on this list addresses a symptom, but the Colombian addresses the cause. The Reds do not just lack quality at centre-back, they lack a defender built for the specific demands of a high-press system. Sanchez is that defender, and there is not another one available at this price point who comes close.
The 21-year-old Colombian made 32 appearances for Ajax last season, scoring 6 goals, providing 2 assists and keeping 2 clean sheets with a Soccerway rating of 7.4 — exceptional numbers for a centre-back in a system demanding defensive excellence as standard. He was named Ajax’s Player of the Season, no small recognition at a club that produced Johan Cruyff and a generation of European football’s greatest players.
Sanchez wins tackles at pace, reads dangerous situations before they develop and carries the ball from deep with a composure that most established Premier League defenders spend careers trying to acquire. Transfermarkt values the Colombian at around £10 million, a figure that almost certainly underestimates his true market value given the level of elite European interest already circling. Davinson Sanchez arriving at Liverpool would solve the most urgent defensive problem in one stroke. Whatever the fee, it will be money well spent. The window closes in two weeks and this is the one signing that cannot wait.
Kamil Glik — The Battle-Hardened Anchor
There is a specific type of centre-back that title-winning defences are built around, not the most technically gifted, not the quickest, but the one who makes every player around him better. Kamil Glik is that player. When Monaco swept to the Ligue 1 title last season, playing some of the most devastating attacking football in Europe, the Polish international was the defensive anchor who made it all possible.
In 2016/17 Glik featured in 53 appearances across all competitions, scoring 6 crucial league goals including decisive strikes that helped Monaco seal the championship ahead of PSG. Across his entire career at the Principality club he played 167 matches and scored 16 goals in all competitions, numbers that tell you this is a centre-back who contributes at both ends of the pitch.
But the Euro 2016 displays revealed something more important than goals. Against Ukraine he made 10 clearances — more than any player on the pitch — and 3 interceptions. Against Northern Ireland, he won 8 aerial defensive duels, again the highest figure of any player on the field. What these numbers describe is a defender who can control a game without ever touching the ball in attack, a player who reads danger, positions himself correctly and eliminates threats before they become chances. In Klopp’s system, where the centre-backs are routinely exposed by a high defensive line, that kind of anticipatory defending is not a luxury. It is a survival requirement. The Silesian has been providing it at the highest international level all summer.
But consider what Glik did in Monaco’s Champions League semi-final against Juventus — one of the most technically accomplished attacking sides in Europe, with Higuain, Dybala and Mandzukic all capable of exploiting the smallest defensive lapse. The Euro 2016 standout held that line with Fabinho alongside him, organising, winning headers and reading the game so precisely that Monaco kept Juventus scoreless for large periods of a two-legged tie that went to the final minutes. That is the level of defensive intelligence Liverpool are missing. He is not a long-term answer at this stage of his career, but he is exactly the short-term solution that gives Klopp the breathing space to find one.
Ibrahim Amadou — The Tactical Wildcard
Of the five names on this list, Ibrahim Amadou is the most unconventional, and potentially the most tactically intelligent use of the remaining transfer budget. The 24-year-old Lille midfielder is primarily a defensive midfielder by trade but his ability to drop seamlessly into a back line gives Klopp genuine positional flexibility that a conventional centre-back signing simply cannot provide.
At Lille in 2016/17, he recorded 84 tackles and interceptions in Ligue 1 alone, a figure that illustrates not just his defensive intensity but his capacity to sustain that output across a full 38-game campaign without the drop-off in concentration that costs teams points at crucial moments. In a pressing system that demands its defensive players work without the ball as hard as they work with it, that kind of defensive workrate is not incidental — it is the foundation everything else is built upon.
Named Lille’s captain by Marcelo Bielsa ahead of the coming season, the Cameroonian-born midfielder arrives with leadership credentials that extend beyond his technical qualities. At 24, available at a reasonable fee and capable of operating across multiple defensive roles, Amadou does the one thing Liverpool’s midfield currently cannot — he defends the space that attacking midfielders leave behind. Every time Coutinho drifts, every time Lallana presses high, somebody has to cover the gap. Right now nobody does. Amadou has spent three seasons doing exactly that for Lille. Bielsa recognised it by giving him the armband. Klopp should recognise it by giving him a contract.
There is a pattern here that goes beyond one bad result at Watford. Liverpool have been searching for a commanding centre-back since Jamie Carragher retired. That is five years of sticking plaster solutions, emergency loans and hoping the problem solves itself. It never does. Klopp cannot afford another summer of hoping. The five names on this list are not the end of the conversation — they are the beginning of one that Liverpool have been putting off for far too long.
Which of these five would you sign first to fix the defensive problems of Liverpool? Let us know below.
