Liverpool's Right-Back Gamble: A Strategic Mistake

Liverpool went into the summer with a clear brief: tighten up at the back, refine the squad, stay smart. On paper, they did some of it. Jeremy Jacquet arrived from Rennes, Ronald Araujo came in on loan from Barcelona, and the depth chart looked broader.

But not where it mattered most.

For all the movement, Liverpool never actually signed a specialist right-back. And now, a few weeks into the season, that omission looks less like a quirk of planning and more like a glaring strategic mistake.

A Big Club, A Small Margin for Error

The situation is stark. Calvin Ramsay has been sent out on loan. Conor Bradley, whose breakthrough injected real life into the right flank, is recovering from a serious knee injury. That leaves Jeremie Frimpong as the only senior natural right-back in the squad.

For a club that wants to challenge on all fronts, that is a razor-thin margin.

Jamie Carragher did not bother to sugar-coat it. Speaking on Stick to Football, he cut straight to the heart of the issue.

“Conor Bradley got his chance and got a bad injury,” he said. “My problem with it is, he's a good young player who's done really well, but if someone gets a bad injury, he's not that good that you don't replace him.

“You'd wait for Trent to come back and you'd wait for Andy Robertson to come back. Unfortunately I don't think we should be waiting for Conor Bradley to come back. You go and buy a right-back because Frimpong isn't one.

“When Conor Bradley comes back, he's then got to fight for his place and I think that's fair; but this thing of 'we've got to wait for Conor Bradley to come back' – no. We're Liverpool, one of the biggest clubs in the world.

“You can't wait for Conor Bradley. We've got to get him back and good luck to him, but they've made a massive mistake.”

Strip away the emotion and the argument still stands. Bradley is talented and fearless, but building a season’s plans around the recovery of a young full-back was always a high-wire act.

The Bradley Void and the Frimpong Load

Serious injuries do not end when the medical staff clear a player. They linger in sharpness, in timing, in those split-second decisions that define a defender’s game. Bradley may return on schedule, but Liverpool cannot realistically expect him to step straight in and immediately hit his peak.

Until he does, Frimpong carries the load.

The Dutchman brings speed, drive, and attacking intent. He can stretch a game, overlap relentlessly, and give Liverpool an extra body in the final third. But the doubts sit at the other end of the pitch. His recent performances have not fully convinced as a defender, and at Liverpool, the right-back role is brutally demanding: cover the width, recover at pace, stay positionally switched on for 90 minutes, every three days.

There is another layer of risk. Frimpong’s fitness record last season was not spotless. One muscle problem, one awkward landing, and the entire structure creaks. At that point, Liverpool are staring at the prospect of improvisation again – midfielders shunted into unfamiliar roles, makeshift back fours, the kind of patchwork solutions that already hurt them during spells of the 2025/26 campaign.

Cover Is Not the Same as a Solution

This is why the frustration around the window is so loud. Liverpool did not ignore their defence. They brought in Araujo, who can operate across the back line. They added Jacquet. On a spreadsheet, it looks like depth.

But cover is not the same as a specialist.

Right-back at Premier League level is no longer a simple defensive job. In Liverpool’s system, it is a hybrid position that shapes the entire team’s structure. You cannot just drop any defender there and expect the same output over a full season.

Andoni Iraola now walks that tightrope. He needs Frimpong fit, confident, and quickly up to a higher level, because the safety net behind him is flimsy. Bradley’s eventual return should ease the strain, yet the club chose to wait for that moment instead of guarding against it.

If this gamble backfires over the coming months, Liverpool will not be able to say they were not warned.