🏟️🔥Jamie Carragher says Liverpool must sign ‘five or six’ players despite likely title win

Jamie Carragher believes that Liverpool will need to sign ‘five or six’ players in what’s set to be a summer of change at Anfield. The Reds are on course to win this season’s Premier League title at a canter but damaging defeats last week in the Champions League round-of-16 and the Carabao Cup final have already shifted the focus to next year.

Arne Slot has enjoyed a tremendous first campaign in charge but with star players Mo Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold out of contract in June, his team could look very different next term. The two defeats to Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle have also led to questions over how capable Liverpool’s backup players are.

Slot’s success has come from relying on a core group of starting players and rarely rotating, becoming a well-oiled machine which is 12 points clear at the top of the table with nine games to go. But with Liverpool showing signs of fatigue at the business end of the season, the decision to name a first-choice starting XI at home to bottom-of-the-league Southampton in between the two PSG games has been criticised.

When Slot did heavily rotate, the Reds were dumped out of the FA Cup by Championship strugglers Plymouth Argyle. To win more than one trophy next season, Carragher reckons that Slot will have to ‘trust’ his squad more and that’ll come from making a considerable amount of new signings.READ MORE: Three Liverpool players showed true colours after Carabao Cup final defeat to NewcastleREAD MORE: Liverpool star’s Wembley misery could be final Reds game as Chelsea and Spurs moves hijacked

You can look at it two ways,” the ex-Liverpool defender said on The Overlap Fan Debate, brought to you by Sky Bet. “You can say that it’s come back to bite them on the backside, with the Champions League and this cup final. But does that put Liverpool in the position that we are as well? Are the other squad players as good?

“I don’t think he has any time for four or five players in that squad, and the fact that he didn’t change players at home to Southampton between the PSG games – against one of the worst teams ever in the Premier League – I can accept that this season as this isn’t really his squad, but next season I’m sure he’ll bring players in.

“He’ll have to trust his squad more because he’ll need to get further in the Champions League, and he can’t accept a performance like that in a cup final.”

Still, though, Carragher is positive about the future under Slot – even if Alexander-Arnold completes a move to Real Madrid. “I’m excited where this manager can take Liverpool because it looks like we’re going to win the league and I still look at so many areas in the team,” he continued.

“We need a centre-back, there’s no real backup for the two who play there. You’re probably gonna need a right-back, we think Trent will go. I think the other two will stay, fingers crossed.

think he needs a central midfielder player to replace [Wataru] Endo but a younger version who he trusts to put in. A centre-forward to play and a left-winger, I’m not sure if [Luis] Diaz stays. So I think there’s probably five or six players, three to probably go straight in the team and another three to be strong backups.”

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