The German tactician valued aerially dominant defenders. The high press that the Reds looked to utilise, and the high defensive line, needed centre-backs who could repel everything.

If the opposition knew an out-ball was on to a physical striker, the entire system would collapse.

Liverpool couldn’t pin or smother teams without the aerially dominant monsters, and I include Fabinho in that as the sitting midfielder during his time at Anfield.

Under Klopp, Dejan Lovren won 65% of his aerial duels. Virgil van Dijk, for most of his Liverpool career, has an aerial duel success rate of 75%, though last year it was 81%.

Joel Matip was always around 70% and before his injury in 2019/20, in his limited playing time, he was winning 90%.

Ibrahima Konaté’s worst campaign for the Reds was his debut season in England when he was winning just 64% of his aerial duels. Since then, he has a success rate of 73%.

Compared to other centre-backs under the former BVB boss, Joe Gomez was the weakest in the air, winning, at best, 60% of his duels.

While that would be bad for a Liverpool centre-back, it isn’t at all bad in the grand scheme of things.

For example, William Saliba only win about 60% of their aerial duels. In fact, this just highlights how important this particular trait was for central defenders under Klopp.

Virgil van Dijk is staying at Liverpool

Arne Slot values physicality. But he’s shown, at times, this season that there’s something more valuable to him in defence. The ability to play out from the back.

It’s why he’s opted to use Ryan Gravenberch at centre-back at times this season even when he’s had defenders at his disposal.

There’s a time and place for physicality, and you do need defenders to dominate, but if Liverpool have 70% possession and they’re looking to build through the thirds, they need players who know what to do with the ball.

With Trent Alexander-Arnold ruled out, there’s been more focus on how the Reds build out from the back. While Konate is decent at pinging es out from the back now, he isn’t yet confident enough to fire es between the lines.

When pressed, he can lack composure. He doesn’t look comfortable having to play into the middle third. And that’s fine. He’s brilliant at a lot of other things.

But other things might not be as valuable to Slot.

There aren’t many unicorns out there. There aren’t many players who can be a playmaker, of sorts, while also dominating physically. And if you have to sacrifice one thing, it’d be aerial dominance, especially with Van Dijk staying.

So the criteria for a new centre-back might focus on their use of the ball. This could be why Dean Huijsen is seemingly so well liked.

Fabrizo Romano confirmed as much recently.

Speaking on GIVEMESPORT’s Market Madness podcast, he said: "I’m hearing that internally at Real Madrid, they have still not decided whether they want to sign a centre-back or not in the summer, how much they want to spend.

"They have Raúl Asencio at the club who is doing very well. So that’s why Real Madrid are not so convinced, not about Huijsen, but about g a new centre-back in the summer.

"And this is why the timing is helping the English clubs. So Liverpool will be there, Arsenal will be there, Chelsea will be there. The release clause is £50m, so the negotiation is on player side, basically.

"And I’m sure that all these three clubs will push and push again in the next days, weeks, to try reach an agreement with Dean Huijsen and his camp."

The Dutch-born Spain international is ridiculously good at playing out from the back. And he can use either foot.

Here, he’s playing out with his left foot. He’s under pressure, he’s being closed down and yet he still, calmly, plays the he wants to play.

In this example, he’s playing it into the feet of Roma. It is weighted to perfection and Lukaku has to do nothing other than hold his man off.

It is a killer . He could’ve played it to the right-back or attempted a big switch to the man on the left. Those are es Konate likely makes. Huijsen goes straight through the middle of the opposition.

That is what you add to your team if you sign him.

How often this season have Liverpool lacked the ability to find a into the forward players? How often has a ball been lumped forward into space with what is best described as a hopeful ?

This one is even more ridiculous.

He initially plays a right-footed into the Roma player just to the left of the centre-circle.

The ball is then immediately played backwards to Huijsen.

Without taking a touch to settle himself, Huijsen plays a left-footed into Lukaku. Again, it is directly through the middle of the opposing team. It byes five players in central areas and gets Lukaku into a one-on-one situation.

He injects tempo into the ing. He helps his team get from the middle third into the attacking third with safe but progressive es.

I want that. Liverpool need that if they’re losing Alexander-Arnold. Especially if the plan isn’t to add a midfielder to their ranks due to the overhaul required elsewhere.

Aerially, he needs to improve. It isn’t a given that just because he’s tall and young means he’ll improve. There are no guarantees.

As a kid, he likely coasted on the fact he’s massive to win aerial duels and didn’t need to focus on timing. At senior level, timing is key.

Right now, he’s winning 60% of his 4.5 aerial duels per 90. For Roma, last season, he was winning 56% of his 2.8 aerial duels. For context, Konate’s lowest aerial success rate was 66%, his highest was 82% for RB Leipzig.

Even during Konate’s worst year with the Reds, his first in the Premier League, he had a higher success rate and was involved in more duels than Huijsen is now.

And he had a proven record of being an aerial demon. Huijsen doesn’t, so to assume he’ll just improve with age is naive. Don’t bank on that improving, just bank on him being brilliant in possession.

With that in mind, focus on what he’s good at and figure out how to hide his weaknesses. And, right now, Van Dijk will do a good job of that.

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