It was recently announced that any Premier League players who will be competing in the AFCON will be, by FIFA rules, called up on December 27th, meaning they could miss up to eight weeks of action.
Star-players from Liverpool, such as Mohammed Salah and Sadio Mane are going to compete in the AFCON and losing such key-players for a considerable number of games could prove detrimental to The Reds and their title hopes.
On the latest episode of our Journo Insight Extra Show, Paul Machin asked Goal’s Liverpool Neil Jones if he thinks The Reds will be looking to enter the transfer market in January in order to sign replacements for their missing African contingent.
Neil said:
“In terms of the transfer market, I don’t see Liverpool going in there because [Jurgen] Klopp, generally, doesn’t work that way, in the sense that he is not going to buy a player for six weeks or four weeks. They sort of did it with [Ozan] Kabak and [Ben] Davies last January, and that was an extreme circumstance where they literally had no players to pick! What it means is that it puts pressure on people like [Divock] Origi, [Alex] Oxlade-Chamberlain, Curtis Jones and [Taki] Minimino to stay fit, never mind to be in form, but to just be available!”
Redmen Reacts
In terms of squad depth, it has always been a point of contention as to whether Liverpool have enough potential replacements if any of the front three were to get injured.
Currently, with the likes of Diogo Jota, Chamberlain, Minamino and Origi, Liverpool have a plethora of options to choose from, but none of them on the same level as Salah or Mane.
In spite of this, it would be unwise and counter-Liverpool-ways, to go in for a replacement when we have sufficient options for a short period of time.
It all depends on whether Klopp deems this as an extreme circumstance, like the injury crisis last year, where action needs to happen, and the likely outcome is that he probably won’t.
TO HEAR MORE FROM NEIL JONES ON THIAGO, MO SALAH AND THE TRANSFER MARKET AS A WHOLE, CLICK HERE.
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