Klopp left with no choice but to complete Liverpool transfer after Wolves draw
I've got a game that you can play while you're waiting for any FA Cup replays to start.
It's a pretty simple one, and the amount of acceptable answers seems to grow by the week.
Basically all you've got to do is go down the Premier League table, look at every club and consider how many of their midfielders would be a good, useful, entirely sensible signing for Liverpool right now. And there are a lot of them.
Fulham? Joao Palhinha. Brighton? Alexis Mac Allister and Moises Caicedo. Maybe even Adam Lallana if you're feeling cheeky.
Brentford? Mathias Jensen. Aston Villa? Douglas Luiz. Leicester? Youri Tielemans. Leeds? Tyler Adams. Nottingham Forest? The lad Orel Mangala looks useful. Bournemouth? Philip Billing.
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There's James Ward-Prowse and Romeo Lavia at bottom of the table Southampton too, and while of course Liverpool aren't going to seriously be considering all of these players, and nor will they be in a position to get some of them given that some have only recently joined their current clubs, signed new contracts or are just generally not available, it is a game that proves a stark reality right now.
The Liverpool midfield is a construct that has often confused and more than occasionally enraged in recent years, but there can now be little doubt that it is in need of major surgery.
Liverpool struggled in midfield against Wolves (PA)The sight of Fabinho, Thiago and Jordan Henderson plodding around the field against Wolves, often seeming unable to keep their footing or move the ball confidently and clearly, was the latest in a long line of sorry visuals for the Reds this season.
These were the three who started the Champions League final last May of course, and rightly so despite concerns over Thiago's fitness, but even back then there were worries about their mobility and creativity. It was notable that Carlo Ancelotti called Liverpool predictable after that game, and that is a comment that seems to have stung in the Anfield corridors of power.
But then by August the same midfield trio were being overrun by Fulham and the excellent Palhinha on the opening weekend of the Premier League season, and a 2-2 draw from which Liverpool have never really recovered.
Liverpool's midfield of Thiago, Fabinho and Jordan Henderson started May's Champions League final (Getty Images)None of this is easy though.
A Jurgen Klopp midfield has often been so difficult to judge because he often doesn't seem to want one to be there.
As Liverpool evolved into a winning machine - no-one talks about the 26 wins from the first 27 Premier League games of 2019-20 when they really should - it was the cliched engine room that powered it.
At the height of its strength Klopp's team would thrive off the hard work done by the likes of Henderson, Fabinho, Gini Wijnaldum, James Milner, Naby Keita and for brief periods Lallana and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
None of those can play football like Kevin De Bruyne, David and Bernardo Silva and increasingly Rodri, and that is a large part of the reason why Liverpool have never got the recognition for the style of their football that Manchester City have, but what often wasn't pretty was certainly effective.
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But with five of those seven Liverpool midfielders mentioned above still at the club, even if things were going well it would be time for a refresh in that department. And going well they are not.
Since Fabinho and Keita's arrivals in the summer of 2018, with Keita having signed a pre-contract a year earlier, Liverpool have only signed one senior central midfielder on a permanent deal - Thiago.
Harvey Elliott and Fabio Carvalho have both been played in midfield (AFP via Getty Images)Youngsters such as Harvey Elliott and Fabio Carvalho have arrived and been played in central midfield, even if that is a position which doesn't come naturally to them. The same can be said of academy product Curtis Jones.
Indeed, there seems to have been a concerted effort to create Liverpool's next first-team midfielder from the moment Thiago arrived, and while that is certainly an admirable and cost-effective way to go about things, it has to be allied with success and cohesion on the pitch.
The idea is seemingly that the Reds can get by with what they have and what they create, before making a move for a player they really, really want whenever they become available. They tried that with Aurelien Tchouameni last year, and we all know who the prime target is for summer 2023.
It is a policy which has served them well, with a refusal to deviate from the main target an approach which has brought them the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Alisson and Ibrahima Konate in recent years. Liverpool had to be patient for all of them when many called for them to sign someone, anyone else.
That might still be the way they end up with Jude Bellingham too, but the idea that the bar has has become so high that Liverpool pass up perfectly viable signings in the meantime needs to be dismissed when you look at the current state of the team, and indeed of many of their contracts with Milner, Keita and Oxlade-Chamberlain all currently set to leave in the summer.
Liverpool need new legs in midfield right now or their season is in serious danger of crumbling away.
They don't even have to be a world-beater signing, a Bellingham or an Enzo Fernandez, just a player or players who can provide a much more solid platform to the flimsy one that currently exists in front of the defence and behind the attack.
There are several players capable of doing that job, and the Reds could do with getting one or more of them immediately.
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