The international break has provided us with an opportunity to look back at the season and apart from the attack not clicking, our defence is a shambles as well. We conceded yet again, this time against Newcastle United, and have not kept a clean sheet since the last international break when we drubbed Arsenal 4-0.

That performance seems long gone since we have only won one game in the last seven and many have already pointed out that not having brought in a quality central defender is a major blunder made by us.

Jurgen Klopp and his team spent the entire summer trying to sign Virgil van Dijk from Southampton and when that deal fell through, it seems no effort was made to bring in someone else.

We seem to be paying for our short-sightedness as Dejan Lovren, Joel Matip, Ragnar Klavan and Joe Gomez haven’t really done well in the heart of the defence. Now reports from Holland claim that we rejected the chance to sign a couple of quality defenders in the summer.

De Telegraaf (h/t TEAMtalk) claims that Davinson Sanchez, the Colombian who joined Tottenham from Ajax for a fee of £42m, was one player who we had lined up. But sadly, we never pursued him with great interest.

Sanchez has fit into the Tottenham team with ease and looks like a quality purchase while the report also adds that we didn’t use the chance to sign Kalidou Koulibaly from Napoli.

The Serie A leaders have been incredible this season so far and are giving Juventus more than a run for their money. The report claims that they wanted us to part with £57m for the 26-year-old Senegalese.

No Van Dijk, No defence

We gave up the opportunity to sign both players as we chased Van Dijk and if we truly knew that we were not going to sign the defender after our public apology, then the management have to be questioned as to why neither player joined us in the summer.

Liverpool have struggled to defend well and spending less than the £70m quoted for Van Dijk would have brought us at least one of the two players mentioned. This is a shocking lapse from the club and even if they tried to sign first choice targets for Klopp, going into the season with just three recognised central defenders was suicidal, to say the least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EuT0mEqWuA