Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp doesn’t like a mid-season buy. “I am not the biggest friend of the January transfer window,” he said in his first winter in England back in 2015.
The Reds boss claims an inflated market due to it being halfway through a campaign, but this seems to be quite a myth. Indeed, several of Klopp’s best signings have been made in January. Virgil van Dijk, most memorably, was announced on December 27 2018, therefore making his debut on New Year’s Day. That one didn’t turn out too badly.
And Klopp has added to his squad in each of the last two January windows with attackers; Luis Diaz in 2022 and Cody Gakpo in 2023. Both of those added much-needed new energy and dynamic to the squad at a vital point of the season. Within weeks of his arrival, Diaz was arguably Liverpool’s best player in the League Cup final at Wembley. The Colombian started 18 games after he arrived from Porto as Liverpool came close to an unprecedented quadruple.
But Diaz’s signing only happened because Tottenham had attempted to sign a player whom Liverpool were, before Spurs’ approach, happy to wait until the summer to sign. Quite how Liverpool would have looked if Spurs hadn’t inadvertently pushed them to make a move, we’ll never know, but Diaz was a vital part of that incredible end-of-the-season push.
Then a year ago, Gakpo arrived into a Liverpool team in dire form. He appeared in all 26 of the Reds’ games after his signing, starting 22 of them. How would Liverpool have looked without him?!
A January signing can absolutely revitalise a team, and give it that added energy and depth just when squads are stretched. That was certainly the case when Diaz arrived at Liverpool in the middle of what was a 63-game campaign for the Reds.
“He adapted so quickly to how we wanted to play,” Jordan Henderson recalled to FourFourTwo, “the speed of the Premier League, everything like that that a lot of people speak about normally when new signings come from abroad. He impressed us, straight away in the first session that I saw him in training.”
A new signing can give a boost to the players around them, especially if they make a significant immediate impact; but even if not, they have a few months to find their feet before a full pre-season the following summer. The benefits are two-fold.
Liverpool have had great success in the January market before, with Philippe Coutinho, Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge all arriving in the winter window. The idea that it’s a bad time to sign players is really a myth.
Injuries galore
So to Liverpool today, sitting at the top of the Premier League and in all three cup competitions, you could be forgiven for thinking they require little surgery this month. However, Klopp had 11 players missing for the FA Cup tie at Arsenal, then 10 for the League Cup semi-final first leg against Fulham, with only one potentially back after the Reds’ mini winter break.
Against Fulham, Klopp actually only had three senior defenders available, considering that 20-year-olds Conor Bradley and Jarell Quansah made no senior appearances for the club last season. The German was asked about the potential for rotation ahead of the Arsenal match, but in all honesty, his options were so limited there wasn’t any room for such an approach, his team almost picked itself.
Klopp prefers to work with a small squad, saying in 2020: “The solution cannot be to have a much bigger squad for the specific moment and then realise you cannot use all the players.” But, he did admit that approach is changing, speaking last January, saying: “It’s clear that you need real quality in all positions, and probably two teams on the same level, if you want, so that you can rotate and these kinds of things.”
Referring to the future expansion of the Champions League and FIFA Club World Cup, among others, Klopp added: “With the games we will have in the next years, the games will not get less.”
With that in mind, the 56-year-old retained a slightly bigger squad this season, but has been shorn of several players due to long-term injuries; Thiago hasn’t played since April, Stefan Bajcetic has made just one start all season, Andy Robertson will have missed over 20 games when he returns next month, and Joel Matip is out for the rest of the season.
Speaking last week, assistant manager Pepijn Lijnders said: “We spent a lot of money in the summer, we really invested in the squad. The ownership really brought in the right players.”
Liverpool actually only brought in four players - all midfielders - while six senior players departed and the fees received for Jordan Henderson and Thiago covered the cost of signing Dominik Szoboszlai. Again, it seems like a bit of a myth that Liverpool spent big, with the £110 million bid for Moises Caicedo perhaps skewing perception there.
Defensive depth?
In the summer, the Reds looked at the potential of signing a left-sided centre-back, something that was very apparent before Quansah’s rather unexpected and impressive emergence as a genuine long-term option this season.
Of course, a long-term option as the holding midfielder was sought, before opting for 30-year-old Wataru Endo, who has steadily impressed to the point where his departure for the Asian Cup this month is a much bigger miss than anyone would have predicted even a month or so ago.
Without Endo, Mohamed Salah, and the long-term injuries in the squad, Liverpool are extremely light in defence and midfield. Klopp, though, always insists a player will not be signed for ‘two or three games’. Liverpool are seeking only long-term options now – this isn’t a case like that 2015 window when Steven Caulker turned up at Anfield on loan.
However, you do wonder if Liverpool can cope with another 60-plus campaign fighting on four fronts, just two seasons after doing so before and the effects that had on the following season. Klopp has managed his squad much more effectively than in 2021/22, fully utilising his players (much thanks to the Europa League being less intense), and expertly using his subs - he averages 4.3 substitutions per game in all competitions this season.
You do, though, get the feeling that a January signing like that of Diaz would really energise and further strengthen Liverpool ahead of the second half of the season. Ask Liverpool fans what they’d rather win this season; the Premier League or all three cup competitions and most would say the Premier League - but is that possible with the effects that going deep in cup competitions has?
Liverpool almost certainly won’t sign anybody this month, but perhaps they should - a title might be riding on it.
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