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It's an area of the pitch that will have quietly troubled Jurgen Klopp for some time.

Twelve months ago, Joe Gomez was beginning the formative stages of his recovery after suffering a leg break at Burnley. Prior to the injury, which was caused after a thunderous collision with Ben Mee, the England international was thriving at the back.

Firmly in place as Virgil van Dijk's centre-back partner, Gomez was flourishing in his natural habitat. It was the position he had always craved after pitching up at Anfield as an 18-year-old with high hopes and bigger dreams.

The game against Burnley was Gomez's 16th start of Liverpool's 21 games up to that point last term but that injury setback left him on the shelf for four months. Gomez would start just one more game between December 5 and June 1 - the 3-0 defeat to Barcelona at Camp Nou in May.

In that time, Joel Matip rose to the challenge, cementing himself as Van Dijk's partner. That spell, one that included an unbeaten run from mid-January to the start of June as the Reds sealed a 97-point runners-up spot in the Premier League, also led to Liverpool winning the European Cup for a sixth time.

Matip, who had made the most of Dejan Lovren's own hamstring problems at the turn of the year, was entrenched as Van Dijk's right-hand man. However, more issues made themselves known when the former Schalke man pulled up with a knee injury back in October.

That has seen him miss the last 11 Liverpool games and with the 28-year-old not part of the squad that travels to the Club World Cup in Qatar next week, common sense would suggest he is sidelined for at least another two weeks, minimum.

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Which brings us to Lovren, the third centre-back seemingly jockeying for position to be Van Dijk's regular team-mate. The Croatian defender has admirably stepped up to the plate in recent weeks, re-establishing his career at Anfield after flirting with an exit back in the summer.

With Gomez struggling to reach the heights of last season, Lovren has deputised with aplomb, Starting nine of the 10 Champions League and Premier League matches, the 30-year-old has enjoyed something of a renaissance of late.

However, at a time when defensive options are stretched during a busy period of the campaign, Lovren inadvertently added to Klopp's headaches by pulling up midway through the 3-0 win over Bournemouth on Saturday.

Hamstring fears initially spread before Klopp moved to play down those concerns, suggesting it was merely cramp for the former Southampton man.

“As always we don’t know exactly but it doesn’t look serious,” he said. “It looks like a little cramp. That’s what I think at the moment but I don’t know 100 percent."

The news that Lovren came through a Monday afternoon trainnig session unscathed was a hugely welcome boost for Klopp and his backroom staff. His absence would have left the European champions down to the bare bones Tuesday's trip to Red Bull Salzburg.



Lovren's limp away from the Vitality Stadium means he is yet to complete six successive game for the Reds more than five years after his arrival on Merseyside. Liverpool, perhaps more than ever, need him to find some durability over the next three weeks.