Josh Lawless
Liverpool fans have told Arne Slot to abandon their pursuit for Newcastle striker Alexander Isak after spotting another major issue in the friendly with AC Milan.
The Premier League champions have spent £265 million so far this summer, bringing in Florian Wirtz and Jeremie Frimpong from Bayer Leverkusen, as well as Bournemouth's Milos Kerkez, Giorgi Mamardashvili and Hugo Ekitike, who signed from Eintracht Frankfurt for a fee of £79 million.
There is still noise indicating that Liverpool could break the bank for Isak, who is unsettled at Newcastle and wants to move on.
Having seen him reject a mammoth move to Saudi, Liverpool are reportedly the only club in "concrete talks" for the Swede according to Fabrizio Romano.
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Wirtz led the line in Liverpool's first friendly on their pre-season tour of Asia, which ended in a 4-2 defeat at the hands of Milan.
And there was cause for concern from a Liverpool perspective, with many Reds worried about options at centre-back.
Liverpool allowed Jarell Quansah to leave for Leverkusen and Joe Gomez flew home from their tour after suffering from an achilles injury.
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Virgil van Dijk's regular partner is Ibrahima Konate and Ryan Gravenberch is capable of deputising, as he did against Milan.
But with a shortage of options, Liverpool fans are calling for a rethink of their transfer plans.
On X, one fan said: "This cb issue is urgent, put those isak plans on hold."
A second commented: "We have to sign a Centre Back before the season starts."
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A third wrote: "Yeah, a centre-back ought to be our number one priority."
A fourth agreed, stating: "One injury to Konate and we’re cooked."
A final worried supporter posted: "We sold Quansah in like mid June and still haven’t got another centre back in. I know we’ve needed to improve our frontline badly but we literally have 3 natural centre backs on our books and one of them gets injured every 5 minutes."
In his post-match press conference, Slot clarified the absences of Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez from his squad and was also asked about the predicament in central defence - acknowledging that Quansah has not been replaced.
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Speaking while next to skipper Van Dijk, Slot said: "I don’t think we have a concern at centre back. Ryan showed he can play that position, he did it as well although we favour him as a No 6. Wata Endo can play there.
"So we have enough options but it is true that Jarell Quansah left and we haven’t replaced him yet."
Liverpool are back in action on Wednesday when they play Japanese side Yokohama F. Marinos.