Liverpool's Defensive Crisis Ahead of Premier League Kickoff

Andoni Iraola hasn’t kicked a ball in the Premier League as Liverpool head coach yet, but he’s already living through a scenario every manager at Anfield now knows by heart: the injury crisis.

Two weeks out from the start of the 2026/27 season, Liverpool should be fine-tuning. Instead, they’re fire-fighting. Mohamed Salah has gone and there is still no confirmed successor on the right. At the back, the situation is even more precarious.

Araujo arrives into a storm

Ronald Araujo’s impending move should have been a statement signing, the kind of marquee addition that settles a dressing room and excites a fanbase. Instead, it feels like a sticking plaster over a problem everyone saw coming months ago.

Before Liverpool closed in on the Uruguayan, Iraola was staring at the prospect of starting a Premier League season with just one fit senior centre-back.

Joe Gomez is definitely out. Giovanni Leoni is still working his way back from an ACL injury and hasn’t returned to full training. Jeremy Jacquet, despite reporting early for pre-season, has yet to play a single minute this summer.

The Frenchman’s absence has become increasingly worrying. With doubts over his involvement against Monaco, the chances of him starting at St James’ Park are shrinking by the day. If he misses the Anfield friendly tomorrow, the optimistic scenario is a 45‑minute run-out against Como next weekend. That’s a flimsy platform for a defender about to be thrown into the Premier League for the first time.

So Iraola is left with one immediate priority: protect Virgil van Dijk and Araujo at all costs. Wrap them in cotton wool, manage every training session, and hope that in the space of a fortnight they can build enough of an understanding to anchor Liverpool’s defence on opening day.

A familiar problem, a self‑inflicted feel

Liverpool are no strangers to defensive injury crises. The club still bears the scars of the 2020/21 campaign, when centre-backs fell one after another and midfielders were dragged backwards to plug holes.

This time, though, there’s a different edge to the anxiety. This feels avoidable.

Anyone glancing at the squad at the start of the summer could see the back line needed strengthening. Van Dijk is in the veteran stage of his career. Gomez and Ibrahima Konaté have long histories of interruptions. Behind them, the depth thins quickly. Araujo, for all his quality, has the air of a late solution rather than the centrepiece of a long-planned rebuild.

Even with him on board, Liverpool are one injury away from another makeshift back four. One awkward landing in training, one mistimed challenge at Newcastle, and Iraola will be raiding other areas of his squad just to get a team on the pitch.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because Arne Slot has already walked this tightrope.

Slot’s blueprint in a bind

Last season, Leoni’s injury in September left Slot with just three recognised centre-backs for the rest of the campaign. It was a dangerous position, but the Dutchman never looked rattled.

He made his stance clear early. "Ryan (Gravenberch) and Wata (Endo) can play there," he said, bluntly underlining his willingness to improvise. "So it is not like all of a sudden we don't have options in that position anymore."

Endo’s ability to drop into the back line is well established. He has done it multiple times in his three years at Liverpool, reading the game, sweeping up danger, and offering calm distribution. But he has only just returned to training after his own injury. Asking him to step into centre-back at St James’ Park, against a physical Newcastle side, would be a big demand.

That leaves Gravenberch as the next emergency option. He has filled in at centre-back before, but the sample size is tiny, and one of those appearances came in a 6-0 cruise against Qarabag in January. You can’t build a defensive plan for the Premier League on that kind of evidence.

Yet that’s exactly the kind of calculation Iraola might be forced into if anything happens to Van Dijk or Araujo in the coming days. There is no secret cache of centre-backs waiting in the academy, no obvious senior solution beyond the pair he is already praying stay fit.

No hiding place

The optics are brutal. A club of Liverpool’s stature, opening a season away at Newcastle, potentially relying on a midfielder at centre-back because a long-anticipated rebuild at the back never quite materialised in time.

If Gravenberch or Endo end up starting in the heart of defence at St James’ Park, the questions won’t just be about Iraola’s tactical creativity. They’ll be about planning, recruitment, and how a known problem was allowed to drift this close to the start line.

For now, everything hinges on two men. Van Dijk, the old leader. Araujo, the new arrival. Between them lies Liverpool’s defensive stability, Iraola’s early credibility, and the tone of a season that hasn’t even begun.

No pressure, Ronald. Just stay fit.