Little over a week into the January transfer window and it’s as you were at Anfield.
The opening week of 2022 saw Leighton Clarkson return to Liverpool after his season-long loan at Blackburn Rovers was cut short, and Tony Gallacher and Morgan Boyes depart permanently for pastures new.
The chances are it won’t get much more exciting than that on the red half of Merseyside, with Nat Phillips perhaps the only senior player expected to leave the Reds this month with the club currently unlikely to make any new signings themselves.
Jurgen Klopp suggested as much last month when addressing the impact Covid-19 vaccine status could have on transfers, admitting Liverpool currently had no incoming deals in the pipeline.
“I got this question asked in the last press conference and didn’t think about it to be honest,” he told reporters.
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“It was probably my fault because we are obviously not close to signing a player so I didn’t think about it but since then I have thought about it and, yes, it will be influential. Definitely.”
Considering Liverpool have just signed six senior players mid-season since the German took over at Anfield in October 2015, and only two of them were long-term signings who went straight into the first team squad, the lack of winter business should not be a surprise to supporters.
After all, it was a similar story for the Reds even last year until their defensive injury crisis worsened and really forced their hand in the final days of the transfer window, with Ozan Kabak and Ben Davies brought in for a potential combined fee of £3.1m after Joel Matip was ruled out for the season.
Ibrahima Konate was the only new arrival in response to such setbacks last year, and for the majority Liverpool have avoided such dire straits when it comes to player availability this season, with even a shortage of midfielders not derailing their efforts in Autumn.
But then they were hit by a Covid-19 outbreak which forced them to close down the AXA Training Centre.
Klopp prefers to work with a smaller squad, always has and always will, but there is no escaping the fact that the Reds have been stung by absentees as a result in recent weeks.
They knew they would lose Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Naby Keita to the Africa Cup of Nations in January. They knew players would suffer injuries along the way. And they knew that, in the midst of a global pandemic, they might suffer with one or two Covid-19 cases along the way too.
But perhaps they didn’t anticipate everything hitting them at once.
The fact that Konate, Kostas Tsimikas, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Diogo Jota are the only players in Klopp’s squad not to have missed matches through injury, illness (Covid-19 or otherwise), suspension or international duty so far this season, emphasises exactly what selection issues Liverpool have had to juggle.
Throw in Divock Origi and Takumi Minamino being sidelined by injury just as Salah and Mane were set to depart for AFCON alongside the likes of Thiago Alcantara getting injured straight after suffering from Covid-19 and Curtis Jones testing positive following his own return from an eye injury, and the Reds are being mocked by cruel irony.
And that was before their Covid-19 outbreak saw them postpone their League Cup semi-final first leg with Arsenal and be left scrambling to put a squad together to face Shrewsbury Town in the FA Cup.
With the majority of the Premier League admittedly suffering similarly, aside from Man City of course, the bitter truth is the festive period has seemingly turned a once-three horse Premier League title-race into a lengthy final straight for Pep Guardiola’s runaway reigning champions.
Now 10 points clear of second-placed Chelsea, and 11 points ahead of Liverpool, it is possible they could suffer their own setbacks in the second half of the season which could see form falter. But there is no escaping that City are the best-placed side in the country to deal with such scenarios.
But could these recent experiences prompt Liverpool to rethink their current transfer stance?
With last year’s injury woes still fresh in the mind, the Reds would be wise not to close the door on any winter transfers entirely.
Assistant manager Peter Krawietz suggested as much when speaking to reporters ahead of Liverpool’s cup clash with Shrewsbury.
“This is a long-term club decision,” he said when addressing the club’s stance. “We take the situation like it is.
“We always try to do our best. We knew about this situation already for a few months, especially the African players who will have to play this tournament and hopefully be successful.
“The Covid situation is like it is. If it is necessary to react on this situation in the transfer market, it is a club decision and we have to discuss that.”
Admittedly injuries are part and parcel of the game, the Africa Cup of Nations was planned around, while Covid-19 absentees, like the AFCON, are only short-term anyway.
But the Reds have been stung by an ever-growing list of absentees once again which has seen them lose ground in the title-race.
While their situation is nowhere near as desperate as last season, the obvious solution, and the one supporters will crave, is January transfers.
The state of the squad that Liverpool are able to select to face Shrewsbury on Sunday is likely to only heighten such calls.
For now, the door for incomings remains ajar, as it did last year prior to Kabak and Davies’ arrivals at Anfield.
Yet their lack of success on Merseyside only reiterates why the Reds are so reluctant to conduct such knee-jerk transfer business in the first place.
Whether such experiences prompt a transfer discussion behind the scenes and potential rethink remains to be seen.
But either way, it’s looking likely to be a long month for Liverpool as they look to compete on all fronts with an ever-changing list of absentees.
