Just eight minutes into his first game as Liverpool head coach, Andoni Iraola saw his worst fears realised: Joe Gomez, starting as captain and centre-back, hobbled off with an injury. The sight of the 29-year-old trudging down the tunnel in Nashville forced the new manager to deploy two teenage centre-backs, Mor Talla N’diaye and Ifeanyi Ndukwe, both 18, for the rest of the first half. Liverpool went on to beat Sunderland 4-2 in their opening pre-season friendly, but the incident laid bare a defensive unit that Iraola himself described as “very thin”. The question now is whether the club can afford to ignore its biggest weakness before the transfer window closes.
Andoni Iraola replaced Arne Slot as Liverpool boss in the summer of 2026. His first match in charge was a pre-season tour game at Geodis Park in Tennessee, where a sparse crowd of 24,897 watched goals from Kieran Morrison, Dominik Szoboszlai, Federico Chiesa and Lewis Koumas secure a comfortable win. But the scoreline masked a deepening problem. Gomez had to be substituted inside 10 minutes, and Iraola called it “probably the worst news”. New signing Jeremy Jacquet, a £55m centre-half acquired from Rennes, was left out as a precaution after a long layoff with a shoulder injury. “With Jeremy we decided to take it easy with him,” Iraola explained. “He will play probably in the last game of this US tour.”
“Liverpool's defensive depth is under scrutiny after Joe Gomez's early injury in pre-season, exposing gaps in a thin squad.”
Liverpool’s defensive depth has been eroding for months. Virgil van Dijk, now 35, was given extra time off following the World Cup and is not due back until next week. Academy graduate Ibrahima Konate left the club on a free transfer to Real Madrid. Giovanni Leoni, 19, who suffered a severe ACL tear last September, is still undergoing individual training. The result is that Manchester City’s squad looked alarmingly short of experienced centre-backs even before Gomez’s injury. “We were kind of happy, but we’ve lost one now,” Iraola admitted. The club’s sporting director, Richard Hughes, sat in the stands at Nashville – a pointed reminder that the transfer market remains open.
For Liverpool fans, the stakes are immediate. The Premier League season is just weeks away, and with van Dijk and Alisson not yet in pre-season, and other stars like Alexis Mac Allister, Victor Munoz, Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak and Ryan Gravenberch also absent, Iraola’s squad is being patched together. The reliance on teenagers in a pre-season friendly against a fellow Premier League side – Sunderland themselves missing Granit Xhaka, Brian Brobbey and Thomas Meunier – highlights a structural vulnerability. If Gomez’s injury proves serious, Liverpool may have no choice but to enter the market.
Q: How serious is Joe Gomez’s injury? The severity is still unknown. Gomez only started seven Premier League games last season due to previous fitness issues, and Iraola said the club faces a “nervous wait” to learn the extent of the problem. The fact he went down within 10 minutes of pre-season is a worrying sign.
Q: Why is Liverpool’s defence so thin? Liverpool lost Ibrahima Konate on a free transfer to Real Madrid and Virgil van Dijk, now 35, has only one year left on his contract. Young defender Giovanni Leoni is out with a long-term ACL injury, and new signing Jeremy Jacquet is being eased in after a shoulder problem. That left two 18-year-olds to hold the centre-back line against Sunderland.
Q: Will Liverpool sign a centre-back before the transfer window closes? Before Gomez’s injury, the club did not see signing a centre-half as a priority. But Iraola has publicly called the squad “very thin”, and the Gomez injury may force a change of plan. Sporting director Richard Hughes was in Nashville, and the club could now accelerate talks.
What happens next depends on Gomez’s diagnosis. Iraola expects Jacquet to feature in the final US tour game against Leeds in Chicago on next Sunday, but that still leaves a shortage of experience. With the transfer window open until the end of August, Liverpool’s defensive crisis has become a pressing test of Iraola’s first weeks in charge.