Collymore makes bold claim about who should start in LFC defence

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Former Liverpool forward Stan Collymore believes Jurgen Klopp should delve into our youth sides and start picking an untried centre-back.

Yet again, we conceded a sloppy goal that cost us yesterday – with Newcastle scoring with their only real effort of note in the 1-1 draw.

In all competitions, we’ve won one game in seven and are seven points off top.

He wrote in The People, cited in the Star: “Somewhere in the club, there must be a young centre-back who deserves his chance.

“Jamie Carragher is the classic example, if you are willing to trust a youngster.

“Carra came in when Neil Ruddock was not doing the business, when Mark Wright was not doing the business, he was brought in as a right-back and ended up a club legend in central defence.

“Jurgen Klopp needs to go and look a bit deeper at what is available – maybe knock on Steven Gerrard’s door, and see if he has the central equivalent of a Trent Alexander-Arnold.

“The fans would buy into a young centre-back being given a chance at this stage.”

The problem is that there isn’t an obvious name to select.

Joe Gomez is the most well known young option and wants to be a central defender long-term, but is being used as a right-back at the moment due to Nathaniel Clyne’s long-term injury.

In the U23s, Conor Masterson is probably the most promising, but he’s not going to be an upgrade on Dejan Lovren or Joel Matip yet – despite their consistent struggles.

In truth, we had our chance to fix our issues in defence during the summer, but decided not to sign anyone when we discovered Virgil van Dijk was unavailable.

At the moment, it’s looking like an absurd choice by the manager.

 

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