Problems mount thanks to Xherdan Shaqiri

Liverpool problems have grown thanks to Xherdan Shaqiri.

It’s been a tough for days for Liverpool, who have missed out on the signing of Timo Werner, and Jurgen Klopp now faces a familiar problem.

This is a long-standing issue but it’s not one Liverpool fans will take any pleasure in reading about. As the rest of the squad has assembled for full contact training, one man is conspicuous through his absence.

Matt Davies has written for the Evening Standard about Xherdan Shaqiri, who was the only member of the squad to remain away from the training ground as Klopp ramped up preparations for the restart of the 2019/2020 season.

Sepp van den Berg, Harvey Elliott and Curtis Jones were part of the youngest cohort to train as the rest of Liverpool’s stars got to grips with things.

We’ve already seen how good Naby Keita looked during the 11vs11 practise game held at Anfield, and if that is any indication of his performance levels once we get back under way Liverpool fans are going to be treated.

The failure to sign Werner will bring Klopp’s squad depth into sharper focus. Many felt the German forward was required to add quality off the bench and a killer instinct when Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino or Mohamed Salah weren’t able to provide it.

Investment in the squad has been fairly sparse, but defendants of those decisions have pointed to the fact that Liverpool have good strength in depth.

They can call on Divock Origi, Shaqiri and Takumi Minamino from the crop of senior players as well as Jones and Elliott from the youngsters.

Without Shaqiri, the insistence that there’s enough cover if anything goes wrong is built on shakier ground. On a personal note, it’s another sad example of a club career that briefly threatened to spark before collapsing on itself.

There were hopes that this lockdown period would allow Shaq to get over those continuous muscle niggles that have plagued his time on Merseyside, but those hopes appear to have been misguided.