What Liverpool coach did during pre-season training should set alarm bells ringing for FSG | OneFootball

One of Andoni Iraola’s coaching staff at Liverpool was compelled to partake in training sessions during the pre-season tour to the United States due to a lack of playing numbers.

The shortage of first-team defenders during the two-week camp was well-documented, with Virgil van Dijk not travelling after his World Cup involvement, Jeremy Jacquet nursing an injury concern, Giovanni Leoni still recovering from an ACL rupture and Joe Gomez being forced off early in the first friendly against Sunderland.

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It left the head coach needing to deploy youngsters such as Ifeanyi Ndukwe, Mor Talla Ndiaye and Luke Chambers at centre-backs in recent games, and while each of those stepped up commendably, it was far from an ideal situation for the Reds.

Liverpool coach had to fill in during training sessions

An in-depth report on the tour by Lewis Steele for the Daily Mail highlighted just how sparse Liverpool’s defensive options have been.

The journalist wrote that Tommy Elphick – a centre-back during his playing career, and now a member of Iraola’s coaching staff at Anfield – joined in some training sessions in the U.S. in order to make up the numbers, such was the shortage of defenders available.

The ex-Bournemouth and Aston Villa player, along with fellow new LFC coach Shaun Cooper, has already become a ‘well-liked’ figure among the Merseysiders’ squad.

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Surely that must jolt Liverpool hierarchy into affirmative action?

Iraola will be highly appreciative of his right-hand man partaking in training to compensate for the absences of multiple defenders, but that peculiar sight must surely set alarm bells ringing in the offices of FSG.

Having one or two centre-backs unavailable is plausible – being without all four senior options in that role less than three weeks out from the start of the Premier League season is where the line into farce territory is crossed.

That makes it all the more baffling that, as claimed by Sky Sports’ Mark McAdam, Liverpool don’t intend to enter the transfer market this month and will instead wait for their current centre-back quota to be replenished.

Just a little reminder to FSG in case they need it – the legendary Van Dijk is now 35 and has played a lot of football over the past year; Leoni has been out for nearly an entire year after his ACL heartbreak; Jacquet missed three months of last season with a shoulder injury; Gomez has had multiple injuries throughout his time at Anfield.

At this rate, we could viably see someone like Ndiaye fast-tracked into the first team over the next few months in the same way that Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams were during the 2020/21 campaign. Ndukwe would probably be the same, except he doesn’t qualify for a UK work permit and is set to be loaned overseas as a result.

Richard Hughes has four weeks to ensure that Iraola isn’t left terribly short of centre-back options for the upcoming season. If the sight of Elphick feeling compelled to plug the gaps in training doesn’t jolt the sporting director into action this month, then what will?