Liverpool's Defensive Dilemma: Young Stars Face Immediate Pressure
Two teenagers, signed on potential and patience, suddenly found themselves holding Liverpool’s pre-season together.
At the U17 World Cup in Qatar last November, Mor Talla Ndiaye and Ifeanyi Ndukwe were names for a database, not a teamsheet. Under Matt Newberry, Liverpool’s head of global talent, the club moved quickly, spending a combined £3.5m on the Senegalese and Austrian centre-backs. They were bought for tomorrow.
They are needed today.
A plan collides with reality
Against Sunderland in Liverpool’s opening pre-season fixture, the script tore after eight minutes. Joe Gomez, the one senior defender who could move between positions and systems, went down and went off. With Jeremy Jacquet and Giovanni Leoni both unavailable, Ndiaye and Ndukwe suddenly became Liverpool’s centre-back pairing.
This was not the grand unveiling. This was necessity.
Andoni Iraola had already warned that his squad was “very thin” defensively. That was before Gomez’s latest setback. The 27-year-old, Liverpool’s longest-serving current player, missed training in Chicago on Sunday, with an update on the severity of his injury due this week. Since arriving from Charlton in 2015, he has already sat out 225 games through injury. That number looks set to rise again.
The picture behind him is just as stark. Virgil van Dijk is the only fit senior centre-back. He is 35, played every Premier League minute last season and remains captain, but the aura that once swallowed up attackers has faded. Like Gomez, he is in the final year of his contract. Both could leave next summer.
Liverpool have spent heavily on what comes next. What they lack is what wins you titles in the present.
The kids, the money and the gap
One of the reasons Liverpool felt able to let Ibrahima Konate walk away on a free to Real Madrid was their conviction in Jacquet and Leoni. Between them, the Frenchman and the Italian cost £86m – £60m for Jacquet, £26m for Leoni – and were judged the standout young centre-backs in France and Italy.
Jacquet is expected to make his debut against Leeds on Sunday. Leoni, Ndiaye, Ndukwe – they all fit a clear pattern. In the six months from last summer to January 2026, Liverpool agreed deals for five centre-backs aged 20 or under: Leoni, Ndiaye, Ndukwe, Noah Adekoya and Jacquet. The long-term succession plan at the back is aggressive, expensive and well stocked.
But it is not ready.
Ndukwe impressed against Sunderland, yet he cannot even stay in England this season; he does not meet UK work permit criteria and must go out on loan. Ndiaye is raw. Jacquet and Leoni are stepping into a new league, a new culture and a club whose expectations do not allow for gentle learning curves.
Robbie Fowler, watching Liverpool in New York as they prepare to face Wrexham on Wednesday, did not bother to dress it up.
“We need players. It’s fairly obvious,” he told BBC Sport. “I’m very sad for Joe Gomez, who has been so unfortunate with injuries. This could have been a real chance to cement his place and for him to show that we don’t need another centre-half.
“We’ve spent money on Jacquet and Leoni and the guidance that Joe and Virgil can give from their experience to the young lads is telling.
“We won’t see the best version of the young lads yet, but you do need that experience in the squad. And yes, the manager’s been on record saying that we need players and I would not be surprised if another centre-half is in that conversation.”
The conversation, though, keeps running into a calculator.
Financial lines and missed chances
From the outside, Liverpool’s failure to land Marc Guehi last summer now looks like a sliding-doors moment. He would have been the bridge between Van Dijk and the kids: Premier League-proven, mid-20s, ready to anchor a defence for years.
Instead, Liverpool’s options are either very young or very close to the exit door.
There is a buyback clause for Jarell Quansah, sold to Bayer Leverkusen for £35m last July, but there are no current plans to trigger it. Inside the club, the focus – and the money – may be heading elsewhere.
If Liverpool push ahead for Bradley Barcola, valued by Paris St-Germain at more than £100m, they know it will squeeze what else they can do in this window. Deals for Jacquet and Victor Munoz alone have already cost £94.5m. Without a major sale from Iraola’s squad, nobody expects a repeat of last summer’s £450m spree.
So the numbers are tight, the needs are obvious, and the market is unforgiving.
Fowler sees the risk.
“When you look at Liverpool across the last decade, one of the problems that we’ve had is that the first 11 is more than capable but the argument that people have is the squad depth,” he said. “I’m a big believer in getting the squad right because it gives everyone a lift and keeps people on their toes, knowing that if you’re not performing, someone else could do the job.
“Go back to the days of Phil Neal and he’ll tell you stories about how players would never want to get injured because they knew that if someone else came, they wouldn’t get their place back.
“You need that mentality and I think that has a real knock-on effect on standards.”
Right now, that fear factor does not exist at centre-back. Van Dijk plays because there is no one else. Gomez, when fit, plays because there is no one else. Behind them, there is a queue of prospects and a gap where a prime, battle-hardened defender should stand.
A bold vision, a brutal present
Liverpool’s recruitment department has made its bet. The club has hoarded some of the most coveted young central defenders in Europe. On paper, the future at the back looks secure.
But seasons are not won on paper or in scouting reports from Qatar. They are decided on nights when a 35-year-old captain needs help, when injuries strip away the safety net, when a title challenge or a Champions League tie turns on one misjudged header.
Liverpool have planned for 2027. The question that now hangs over Iraola’s first season is simple: who protects them in 2024–25?
