Liverpool’s old Achilles heel came to the fore on the weekend in the shape of some shaky defending that contributed heavily to a 2-3 loss at home to Swansea, who were bottom of the Premier League before kick-off.

Although Jurgen Klopp’s Reds were not their usual fluid selves in the final third, it was their inability to keep the ball out of their own net that eventually undone them, with two of the Swans’ goals coming via some shoddy defending.

Fernando Llorente’s opener was a scruffy effort after the Merseysiders struggled to deal with a set-piece, while Gylfi Sigurdsson’s shock winner came against the run of play after Liverpool first failed to halt Tom Carroll’s run and then presented the ball to the Iceland international on a silver platter in the form of a shoddy clearance from Ragnar Klavan.

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There is the caveat of Joel Matip being kept out of the first-team due to FIFA’s reluctance to grant him permission to play amid a dispute with Cameroon, but that by no means spared Klopp’s blushes and has done little to dispel the narrative that the club need a commanding centre-back.

And club legend Steven Gerrard had his say on BT Sport (via the Liverpool Echo), highlighting Southampton’s Virgil van Dijk as the perfect solution:

"Who I think we need, I would go and try and bid for Van Dijk from Southampton.

"But we’ve had enough of their players so that will probably go down like a lead balloon."

Gerrard, although a little sceptical about a move, is right, and the numbers show that, too…

As the stats suggest, Van Dijk is an authoritative defender, who combines his physicality with the sort of technical attributes to succeed in the modern game. Indeed, he’s won 96 aerial duels this season (more than any of Liverpool’s current centre-backs), while weighing in with 30 tackles and 56 interceptions. On top of this, he’s made no errors that have resulted in goals (Dejan Lovren, Matip, Lucas Leiva and Klavan have three combined ) and has completed 84% of his passes.

The Saints are unlikely to be keen to sell ANOTHER player to the Merseyside club, but Liverpool should be doing all they can to land the Dutchman.

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