Liverpool's Youth Gamble Faces Defensive Crisis
Two centre-backs lit up Liverpool’s scouting reports at the U17 World Cup in Qatar last November. Within weeks, the club moved. £3.5m spent, two teenagers in the door: Senegal’s Mor Talla Ndiaye and Austria’s Ifeanyi Ndukwe.
This was the Matt Newberry blueprint in motion. Liverpool’s head of global talent had pushed hard on future-proofing the squad, building the next great back line before the current one fades. The plan looked bold. It also looked distant.
No one at Anfield expected the future to arrive by the first pre-season game.
Yet there they were against Sunderland: Ndiaye and Ndukwe, side by side, suddenly the main pairing after Joe Gomez limped off in the eighth minute. Jeremy Jacquet and Giovanni Leoni, the two big-money defensive bets, were both unavailable. Within a quarter of an hour of pre-season, Liverpool’s long-term project had been shoved into the short-term spotlight.
The club now have a problem right where no elite side can afford one: the middle of their defence.
A thin line at the back
Andoni Iraola had already sounded the alarm. Even before Gomez’s latest setback, the new head coach called his defensive options “very thin”. That was before the squad flew into Chicago. Before Gomez missed Sunday’s training session. Before the medical team began assessing the severity of yet another injury for a player whose Liverpool career has been repeatedly stalled by them.
Gomez is Liverpool’s longest-serving current player. He arrived from Charlton in 2015 with the look of a decade-long solution. Instead, according to Transfermarkt, he has missed 225 games through injury. Another lay-off now, with just a year left on his contract, lands at a brutal time for both player and club.
Virgil van Dijk stands alone as the only fit senior centre-back. The captain is 35, coming off a Premier League season in which he played every minute. His presence still carries weight, his reading of the game remains elite, but he is no longer the all-consuming force of his peak. Like Gomez, he is also into the final year of his deal. There is a very real scenario in which both walk away next summer.
Behind them, the future is expensive and unproven.
The Jacquet–Leoni bet
Liverpool allowed Ibrahima Konate to leave on a free for Real Madrid because they believed they had already secured the next wave. Inside the club, Jeremy Jacquet and Giovanni Leoni were viewed as the standout young centre-backs in France and Italy respectively.
The numbers back the conviction. Jacquet cost £60m at 21. Leoni followed at 19 for £26m. Huge money for defenders yet to establish themselves at the very top level.
Jacquet is in line to make his debut against Leeds on Sunday. Leoni will follow once fit. Liverpool will give both every chance to grow into the roles their fees demand. But right now, just like Ndiaye and Ndukwe, they are projects, not pillars. Players to nurture, not yet players to lean on when the season tightens and the margins shrink.
Robbie Fowler, watching this unfold from close quarters on Liverpool’s US tour, did not sugar-coat the situation.
“We need players. It’s fairly obvious,” the former striker told BBC Sport in New York, where the Reds face Wrexham on Wednesday.
His sympathy for Gomez cut through.
“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 missed chances and the money squeeze
From the outside, Liverpool’s failure to land Marc Guehi last summer now looks even more significant. A ready-made Premier League defender in his prime would have changed the tone of this pre-season completely.
There is a safety net of sorts in Jarell Quansah. Liverpool inserted a buyback clause when he left for Bayer Leverkusen for £35m last July. For now, though, there are no plans to trigger it. The clause exists, but it is not part of this summer’s thinking.
The market, as ever, dictates the limits. If Liverpool push through a move for Bradley Barcola, valued by Paris St-Germain at more than £100m, the room for further major deals tightens quickly. Jacquet and Victor Munoz have already cost a combined £94.5m. Without a significant outgoing from Iraola’s squad, this will not be a repeat of last summer’s record £450m spend. The club know it. Agents know it. So does the manager.
Fowler, who scored 183 goals for Liverpool, sees the same pattern that many supporters recognise.
“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.
“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.”
Liverpool’s recruitment over the past year shows they are trying to build that internal pressure. It just hasn’t reached the back line in the way Iraola needs for the coming season.
A future stacked with centre-backs – and one glaring hole
From last summer through to January 2026, Liverpool agreed deals for five centre-backs aged 20 or under at the time: Leoni, Ndiaye, Ndukwe, Noah Adekoya and Jacquet. On paper, the pipeline is overflowing.
Ndukwe underlined that promise against Sunderland. Composed, aggressive, comfortable on the ball, he looked every inch a modern Liverpool defender. Yet bureaucracy now intervenes. He does not yet meet the criteria for a UK work permit, so he must go out on loan this year. His development will continue, just not at Anfield.
That is the story of Liverpool’s defence in one snapshot. Long-term potential everywhere. Short-term certainty nowhere.
The club have stacked the deck for 2027, 2028 and beyond. They have gambled heavily on the idea that one or two of these young centre-backs will grow into elite operators under the guidance of Van Dijk and, they hoped, Gomez.
But right now, as pre-season rolls on and the Premier League looms, Iraola looks at his squad and sees one fit senior centre-back, an injured stalwart with a fragile body, two big-money signings not yet ready to carry the load, and a cluster of teenagers learning on the job.
The future of Liverpool’s defence might be secure. The present is anything but.
