Jurgen Klopp is well aware that his Liverpool squad has suffered with injuries this pre-season. However, ahead of the Reds’ Premier League season-opener away at Fulham, he insisted the club’s transfer plans haven’t changed, with their incoming business believed to be done, despite such setbacks.
Liverpool are set to be without Diogo Jota, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Curtis Jones, Ibrahima Konate, Kostas Tsimikas, Caoimhin Kelleher and Calvin Ramsay for their trip to Craven Cottage. However, Alisson Becker is available for selection after returning to training following an abdominal injury, while Klopp is hopeful that Naby Keita can play after illness.
The Reds’ injury list forced the German to name a youthful squad for his side’s final pre-season friendly against Strasbourg last weekend, with eight teenagers starting as Liverpool took to the field again just a day after defeating Man City in the Community Shield. Meanwhile, Klopp has admitted the injury to Konate in particular could see Nat Phillips stay put at Anfield, after the defender had previously been expected to move on after spending the second half of last season on loan at AFC Bournemouth.
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“Probably. (Konate’s injury) will influence the outgoing transfers, I would say,” he told reporters on Friday. “We have too many injuries, that's true. But in the moment nothing has changed (in terms of new signings).
“A lot of unlucky situations… but we cannot solve a problem we have for four weeks with a transfer for a full year. That makes at the moment no sense to us. But the transfer window is still open and we will see. But the plans are not to go in that direction.”
Liverpool have signed three players so far this summer in Darwin Nunez, Fabio Carvalho and Ramsay. And while supporters have been eager to see the Reds strengthen midfield in particular, even before their recent injury setbacks, the club have put such plans on hold until 2023, with speculation linking them with a future move for Borussia Dortmund star Jude Bellingham as a result.
Meanwhile, from the players available to Klopp for the second half of last season as they chased an unprecedented quadruple, they have sold Sadio Mane and Takumi Minamino to Bayern Munich and AS Monaco respectively, while Divock Origi left for AC Milan on a Bosman transfer at the end of his contract. Beyond that, they have also sold Neco Williams and Ben Davies.
As a result, despite current injuries, the decision to retain Phillips’ services means Klopp actually has one more senior player to choose from than he did during the second half of the season. And if Sepp van den Berg doesn’t depart on loan again, having returned from a successful 18-month stint with Preston North End, the German’s senior squad will actually contain 27 players.
Therefore, even with seven injured players, Klopp still has enough senior players at his disposal to name a full 20-man squad against Fulham. With Tsimikas set to return to training next week, soon he’ll be left with left out, disappointed players on matchdays, while throw in some of the club’s most talented youngsters, such as Stefan Bajcetic after the 17-year-old impressed throughout pre-season, and Liverpool’s depth is even greater.
From the 27 senior players on the Reds’ books, when everyone is fit Klopp can pick between three goalkeepers, four full-backs, six centre-backs, eight midfielders and six forwards, with the versatility of the likes of James Milner, Joe Gomez, Harvey Elliott, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Carvalho enhancing options further.
To put that number into further context, Pep Guardiola’s current senior Man City squad only contains 20 players. So beyond such totals, what will Klopp’s squad look like when it’s time to submit 25-man quotas for Premier League and Champions League action after the transfer window closes?
In terms of the Premier League, the German is currently set to only need to name a 22-man squad, courtesy of the number of Under-21s under senior consideration at Anfield. Meanwhile, if Phillips indeed stays put, Liverpool will be able to fill seven of the required eight homegrown berths, limiting their maximum squad size to 24 if they strengthened further, either this month or January, unless they signed another qualifying player.
However, UEFA rules make it a little bit more complicated when it comes to filing a 25-man squad for the Champions League, reiterating that they are unlikely to sign anyone else in the weeks ahead.
While the likes of Ramsay, Carvalho, Van den Berg, Bajcetic and Kaide Gordon are all classed as Under-21s players in the Premier League, so don’t need to be registered as a result, none of the quintet currently qualify for the UEFA equivalent (List B).
UEFA rules state: “A player may be registered on List B if he is born on, or after, 1 January 2001 and has been eligible to play for the club concerned for any uninterrupted period of two years since his 15th birthday by the time he is registered with UEFA – or for a total of three consecutive years with a maximum of one loan period to a club from the same association for a period not longer than one year. Players aged 16 may be submitted if they have been registered with the club for the previous two years without interruption.”
With Ramsay and Carvalho both new signings, they would have to be registered in Liverpool’s 25-man squad as a result, with such rules resulting in Elliott needing to be registered in recent years despite being Under-21, though he now qualifies for List B. The same applies for Bajcetic and Gordon, having only been at Anfield for 18 months, while Van den Berg has not yet clocked up three consecutive years with a maximum of one loan as his move to Preston lasted 18 months.
Like in the Premier League, homegrown rules currently limit the Reds to naming a 24-man squad for the Champions League, as while Carvalho, Gordon and Van den Berg could technically all help make up Liverpool’s minimum required eight ‘locally-trained’ players as ‘association-trained’ players, no club can have more than four association-trained players among their eight 'local' nominees.
The decision to retain Phillips means the Reds already possess four such players, with Jordan Henderson, Milner and Oxlade-Chamberlain completing that quota. As a result, they require one further ‘club-trained’ player, to join Trent Alexander-Arnold, Gomez and Kelleher if they are to name a full 25-man squad, though this won’t be an issue in the future with Jones and Elliott both eligible when no longer Under-21s players.
Therefore, with Liverpool again filling seven of their eight homegrown berths and boasting 15 senior foreign players, they only have two spaces left in their squad for Under-21s players who don’t yet qualify to be on List B. Carvalho and Ramsay are likely to fill those spots, meaning the likes of Van den Berg, Gordon and Bajcetic would not be eligible to play in the Champions League this season as a result.
As a result of such rules, we can take it at face-value that Liverpool’s incoming business is done for the summer with Klopp’s squad for the 2022/23 campaign in place before the Reds even reported back for pre-season training on July 4. And while they have currently been stung by injuries, the club still have enough players on the books for the German to comfortably navigate through any such setbacks.
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