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Liverpool could be facing something of a centre-back crisis ahead of the trip to face Brighton and Hove Albion in the Premier League on Saturday, but manager Jurgen Klopp can solve two selection headaches in one with his use of summer signing Fabinho.

On the chalkboard

Things were rosy for the Reds just a couple of weeks ago as they were leading and unbeaten in the top flight despite missing Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain through injury.

However, defeat to title rivals Manchester City was followed up by a loss against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the third round of the FA Cup on Monday night, and to make matters even worse the Merseyside outfit – who were already without the colossal Virgil van Dijk – saw Dejan Lovren leave the field just five minutes in with a hamstring issue.

Klopp will be desperate for his team to recover from their mini-blip and win on the south coast at the weekend, but he now has some big selection decisions to make.

Who starts?

Should Van Dijk recover from the problem that saw him miss the trip to Molineux and Lovren is ruled out at the Amex Stadium, then Fabinho should once again line up at the heart of the defence – as he did against Nuno Santo's men.

While Klopp has a real shortage of numbers at centre-back right now it is a different story in the middle of the park, where he has Jordan Henderson – who also missed out against Wolves with a minor injury – Georgino Wijnaldum, James Milner and Naby Keita to pick from.

Fabinho would have counted himself unlucky not to be selected ahead of one of Henderson, Wijnaldum or Milner for the clash against Man City, and his German manager can solve two selection headaches in one by starting the Brazilian in defence against the Seagulls instead.

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