Liverpool have secured Jeremy Jacquet "for the future," but with the defence currently thin and injuries piling up, is this strategic patience or a massive gamble? | AFP
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There is a particular kind of transfer that instantly sends a fanbase into an existential crisis. Not the Galactico who flops. Not even the £100m winger who can’t beat a full-back. No, it’s the "one for the future" signing announced while your defence is actively on fire.
Liverpool, ladies and gentlemen, have done it again.
While goals are being conceded with alarming generosity, the club has calmly unveiled young Rennes defender Jeremy Jacquet, who won’t actually help put out the current blaze. Not now. Not this season … eventually.
This raises the obvious question: have Liverpool quietly decided that 2026 is someone else’s problem?
On paper, the strategy is noble. It’s about sustainable squad building, smart recruitment, and "trusting the process". In reality, it feels a bit like buying curtains for a house with no front door.
This is a Liverpool side that still looks deeply uncomfortable whenever a cross enters the box. Skipper Virgil van Dijk has been a shadow of his former self, his partner Ibrahima Konaté has struggled for consistency, and there are growing doubts over whether Milos Kerkez will ever truly be the heir to Andy Robertson.
The right-back situation is no better; Conor Bradley and Jeremie Frimpong are both crocked, while reliable deputy Joe Gomez is — surprise, surprise — back on the treatment table. The season-ending injury to promising young centre-back Giovanni Leoni has only exacerbated their woes.
At Anfield, defensive solidity is currently a fond memory rather than a weekly expectation. And yet, when the moment arrived to address these issues decisively, the club opted for patience. Again.
The Marc Guéhi situation only adds to the confusion. Guéhi isn’t a developmental gamble; he’s a ready-made solution. He is Premier League proven, possesses leadership qualities, fits the right age profile, and is exactly the sort of defender who might stop the Kop holding its breath every time an opposition winger cuts inside.
Letting him slip through their fingers once might be understandable. Doing it twice starts to look like a pattern.
Which leads to the uncomfortable question: is this season being treated as a transition year?
Liverpool would never admit that publicly, of course. This is still a club that speaks — and thinks — in terms of title races and deep European runs. But actions have a habit of speaking louder than carefully worded press briefings.
One wonders if they had maintained their early-season form and were still neck-and-neck for the title, would they have moved more decisively to fix such an obvious flaw?
The alternative explanation is more charitable, and perhaps more "Liverpool-esque". The club has long backed its coaching staff to improve players internally rather than resort to panic buys. Does anyone recall Ben Davies and Ozan Kabak?
They were signed during a similar defensive crisis under Jürgen Klopp, and their impact was … forgettable.
Perhaps that’s why the club feels it’s better to keep faith in the current threadbare options. They are banking on the idea that stability will return organically through coaching, and that throwing money at the problem mid-season risks repeating past mistakes.
There is also the cold reality of the market. Prices are inflated, the pool of quality defenders is shallow, and Liverpool remain stubbornly unwilling to be strong-armed into deals they don't fully believe in. From a business perspective, that restraint has served them well.
But football isn’t played on balance sheets. Patience is a hard sell when points are being dropped and a resurgent Chelsea and Manchester United mean Champions League qualification is far from a formality.
For now, Liverpool exist in a strange limbo — not quite rebuilding, but not quite "all-in". They are planning meticulously for tomorrow while hoping today doesn’t unravel completely.
Jacquet may yet become a cornerstone of the next great Liverpool side.
The only problem?
By the time he’s ready, the questions about this season may already have been answered — and not in the way anyone at Anfield was hoping for.