The transfer window was ticking into its final few hours at the end of January 2021 and Jurgen Klopp knew he had to act fast.
After pulling up at half-time of a victory at Tottenham on January 28, a season-ending injury was to be the diagnosis for Joel Matip as he joined Joe Gomez and Virgil van Dijk on the shelf to leave the Reds without a senior fit centre-back for the remainder of the term.
And so started the kind of mad-dash search across Europe that was so out of character for a club who take ample pride in their strategic, long-term planning, particularly when it comes to recruitment.
