When Liverpool lined up against Exeter with Tiago Ilori and Jose Enrique in central defence, it was abundantly clear that the injury problems had reached crisis levels. Martin Skrtel is a long term injury concern, Dejan Lovren is at least a couple of weeks away from a return and Liverpool's lack of defensive cover has been laid bare in a week which sees them face Arsenal and Man United.
Crises require tough decisions and that's exactly what's happening as Liverpool have signed one time England centre half Steven Caulker on an emergency loan from QPR.
#LFC have completed the signing of Steven Caulker on loan from Queens Park Rangers until the end of the season. pic.twitter.com/jacWOhBsMN
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) January 12, 2016
Although Caulker had been on a season long loan at Southampton, that has now been cut short.
While this is obviously a case of doing whatever is possible to plug a gap in the short term, it's certainly a significant step down from the kind of signings Jurgen Klopp has been linked with in recent weeks. Schalke's Joel Matip looks likely to arrive at Anfield on a free transfer this summer while the Dortmund duo of Mats Hummels and Neven Subotic have been constantly linked with Liverpool in recent weeks.
It had been thought that Schalke were unwilling to allow Matip to leave early while talk of a move for Hummels was always fanciful in the extreme. Subotic has been out of the Dortmund team this year however, if Klopp did move for the Serbian international, it seems his former club have no intentions of letting him leave early.
Which brings us on to Caulker. There's no doubt it's a strange signing. After impressing for Swansea on loan from Spurs, it looked like everything was set for Caulker to become an England centre half for years to come. However, his return to Spurs did not go entirely to plan and his decision to move to Cardiff in 2013 and then QPR in 2014 were probably not the ideal solution in hindsight.
His reputation has been on the wain in recent years and his current spell with Southampton has done little to readdress that. However, he is still only 24 and he has shown in the past that he has the ability. Whether Klopp can bring that out of him in only six months is up for debate but it's very much a case of needs must and it would appear that Liverpool have settled on Caulker as the best solution for the current problem.
Having said that, it's not exactly positive for Liverpool fans to think that his last appearance was during Southampton's 6-1 drubbing at the hands of Liverpool in the Capital One Cup.
