John Gibbons: It doesn’t matter who plays centre back as long as they’re next to Van Djik

You’ll struggle to find many out there that love Liverpool more than John Gibbons and he feels there’s no defensive crisis as long as Virgil van Djik is fit…

Wolves wasn’t very fun on Monday. Having missed the league game there for family reasons, which Liverpool won, and hearing so much about their pre-match DJ and fireworks display I was determined not to miss the cup game.

Which Liverpool predictably lost. The fireworks were good though, to be fair, so it wasn’t a wasted trip.

There weren’t many bangers in the Liverpool starting eleven either. The fringe players disappointed and senior pros didn’t really step up.

Everyone just looked like they couldn’t be bothered with the whole thing. Including Jurgen Klopp, who looked absolutely fuming with Divock Origi when he almost forced a replay.

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I honestly reckon he might sell him off the back of it. But luckily for Jurgs, Simon Mignolet did his worst Alisson Becker impression and they scored again.

As much as it pains me to say it as someone who loves and sticks up for the FA Cup, it probably isn’t a disaster going out of it early this year. Liverpool have a great chance of winning the league title this season and a warm winter training camp in Tenerife instead of a trip to Stoke certainly sounds more beneficial, and also well better.

In fact, arguably the biggest negative of Monday was Dejan Lovren’s injury.

Quite how he managed to get an impact injury without having ran for the ball yet was a bit of a mystery, but he somehow did it. It does leave Liverpool in a bit of a centre half injury crises though, with Joel Matip and Joe Gomez also currently out.

Injuries to all three too frequent to be honest, but it’s still a bit of bad luck to be without all of them at once and with Man City suddenly finding their shooting boots again, we need all the luck we can get.

So, what are his options?

Well 16-year-old Ki-Jana Hoever did really well when he came on, but it would be a massive shout to play him in a crucial league game.

It should be remembered that when Alan Hansen famously, and wrongly, said “you win nothing with kids” he was talking about a group of 20 year olds, not an actual child who had to get a note off his mum to leave school early to play (this might not be true).

Jurgen will most likely pick Fabinho, who did okay at Wolves too, to play at centre half. But to be honest as long as he’s alongside Virgil Van Djik, he can almost pick who he likes.

It’s Van Djik who the Liverpool fans are praying isn’t the next injury to hit us.

Rumours are he’s getting an escort wherever he goes at the moment from Reds fans desperate to not see him get any harm.

They’re testing his coffee to check it’s not hot or stopping traffic whenever he crosses the road. It’s a full-time operation! We’ve even got lads watching him sleep.

We might all be worrying about nothing though. Last season we went to Brighton with a defensive injury crises too (can’t believe Joel Matip was injured again) and Gini Wjinaldum at centre half, but just decided to score five instead.

Maybe in this game attack will be the best form of defence again?

They all got a nice rest on Monday. Time for the front three to do some work and fire The Reds seven points clear at the top.

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