Liverpool are refusing to put pressure on Virgil van Dijk by naming a timespan in which they hope to have the Dutchman back available again, but the fact remains that he will be out for a significant period of time.
As was discussed on both the Poetry in Motion podcast and the Liverpool.com podcast this week, Liverpool will miss Van Dijk in a variety of ways - his defensive abilities are clear, but he is also, for example, an excellent passer of the ball, and he is a huge threat offensively from set-pieces.
But Jurgen Klopp, while he will be as disappointed as anyone else to have his player missing through injury, spoke a long time ago about the risks surrounding high-profile players like Van Dijk.
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With Van Dijk out, Liverpool are not only missing a crucial component of their team, but they are also without an asset that they paid a transfer fee of £75 million for - and who is worth considerably more than that now.
When Paul Pogba signed for Manchester United for a then-record fee of £89million in 2016, Klopp was inevitably asked about spending such a fee on a player.
At the time, he said: "If you bring one player in for £100million and he gets injured, then it all goes through the chimney. The day that this is football, I'm not in a job anymore, because the game is about playing together.
"That is how everybody in football understands it. You always want to have the best, but building the group is necessary to be successful.
"Other clubs can go out and spend more money and collect top players. I want to do it differently. I would even do it differently if I could spend that money."
Since then, Liverpool have spent £75million on Van Dijk and another £62million on Alisson Becker - two players who have been missing with injuries already this season, though the Brazilian's absence is much more short-term.
But while Klopp did alter his stance slightly on spending significant money on one player when the time is right, he has been proven correct nonetheless when it comes to those comments.
Like Manchester United did with Pogba, Liverpool chose to take the risk by investing so much in Van Dijk.
Already, they would argue, they have found exceptional value in him, winning the Champions League and Premier League in no small part thanks to the Dutchman's performances.
Ask Liverpool whether they would choose to spend £75 million on Van Dijk again and the answer would clearly still be 'yes', but Klopp knew all along that the risk of losing him for a long time was attached, even with such a high-profile asset.
