Liverpool's Defensive Dilemma: Araujo's Arrival Amid Injury Crisis
Andoni Iraola has barely walked through the door at Liverpool and already he’s staring at a problem every recent Reds manager knows too well: a defense held together by hope and tape.
Two weeks from the start of the 2026/27 season, Liverpool look undercooked. The Mohamed Salah-shaped hole on the right wing is still there, with Bradley Barcola and Ibrahim Mbaye names on a list rather than in the dressing room. Rio Ngumoha and Federico Chiesa can cover that flank if needed, and they might have to.
But the real anxiety is behind them.
Araujo arrives into a storm
Before news of Ronald Araujo’s impending arrival, Liverpool were braced for the prospect of starting a Premier League season with just one fit senior center-back. That is not a tactical wrinkle. That is a red siren.
Joe Gomez is already ruled out. Giovanni Leoni is still fighting his way back from an ACL injury and hasn’t rejoined full training. Jeremy Jacquet, who reported early for preseason, has yet to play a single minute this summer.
Even now, there’s doubt over whether Jacquet can feature against Monaco. If he sits that one out, the best Liverpool can realistically hope for is around 45 minutes against Como next weekend. That’s hardly the ideal preparation for a player about to be thrown into the Premier League for the first time, at St. James’ Park of all places.
So Iraola’s immediate task is brutally simple: keep Virgil van Dijk and Araujo upright, available and in sync.
He has to wrap them in cotton wool and pray they learn each other’s movements quickly enough to form a functioning partnership in the space of a fortnight. There is no gentle bedding-in period here. There is Newcastle away.
A crisis with fingerprints on it
Injuries at Liverpool are nothing new. What stings this time is how avoidable it all feels.
Anyone glancing at the squad at the start of the summer could see the back line needed reinforcing. Araujo’s deal has the air of a late fix, a move prompted by necessity rather than long-term design. He raises the level instantly, but he doesn’t erase the risk.
Even with the Uruguayan on board, Liverpool are still just one strain, one awkward landing, away from improvisation in the most unforgiving part of the pitch. Iraola may have to borrow directly from the playbook of the man he replaced.
Last season, Arne Slot lived this tightrope. When Leoni went down in September, the Dutchman was left with three center-backs for the rest of the campaign. Given Gomez’s history and Ibrahima Konaté’s patchy availability, that was a gamble bordering on reckless.
Slot, though, barely blinked.
“Ryan (Gravenberch) and Wata (Endo) can play there,” he said early in the season, matter-of-fact. “So it is not like all of a sudden we don't have options in that position anymore.”
It wasn’t bravado. It was the reality of a squad stretched thin.
Midfielders on standby
Endo’s ability to step back into the defensive line is already well established. He’s done it several times in his three years at Liverpool, tucking in, reading danger, giving the team a measure of control when specialists were missing.
Right now, though, he’s only just back from injury himself. Asking him to anchor a makeshift back line at Newcastle, in the opening game of the season, is a big call.
If either Van Dijk or Araujo suffers a setback, the responsibility may fall on Gravenberch instead. He has dabbled at center-back before, but only briefly. You cannot seriously assess his suitability for the role based on a stroll in a 6-0 win over Qarabag in January.
Yet those are the cards on the table. Behind Van Dijk and Araujo, there is no queue of ready-made alternatives. There is a holding midfielder with a heavy recent workload and an attacking midfielder learning a new language of the game.
For a club of Liverpool’s scale, the optics are brutal. Starting the season at St. James’ Park with Gravenberch or Endo at center-back would not just underline the fragility of the squad planning; it would broadcast it.
No pressure, then, on Ronald Araujo.
He hasn’t even pulled on the shirt in a competitive game yet, and already his fitness feels like one of the early fault lines on which Liverpool’s season might rest.
