Paul Merson has slammed Liverpool for their decision to sign Jeremy Jacquet in a summer deal rather than bring the defender now.

Liverpool have had a bad season in the Premier League, as they have faced many problems of different varieties. The defence has been a particular cause of concern for the Reds owing to injury-led absences of personnel, which started with their failure to land Marc Guehi back in the summer.

Guehi has since joined Manchester City in the winter transfer window, when Liverpool were widely regarded as one of the favourites to land him this year. After the debacle with Crystal Palace for Guehi last summer, they also saw young summer arrival Giovanni Leoni ruled out for the remainder of the season with an ACL rupture in his first game for Liverpool.

As the season has progressed, Liverpool have suffered injury issues at the back, as they are also set to miss Conor Bradley for the remainder of the campaign. Jeremie Frimpong has had multiple issues since his summer arrival, while Joe Gomez continued to show why he cannot be trusted to play a consistent amount of games.

The fans expected the club to react in the winter transfer window with a defensive signing that would particularly solve the depth issues in the central areas. At the moment, they do not have any depth in the central defensive positions, with Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate their only real options there.

This brings their £60 million summer deal for Jeremy Jacquet, as Liverpool agreed to pay a premium price for the Stade Rennais defender, but only to bring him in for next season. Chelsea were also interested in the young centre-back, but Liverpool pushed to get a deal done.

Paul Merson on Sky Sports was anything but impressed with the nature of the deal, as the Arsenal icon slammed Liverpool for not signing Jacquet in this window for the team. He pointed at their need for a centre-back, and also insisted that he was alright with Chelsea not signing him.

Merson said, “I found it extraordinary that [Jacquet] is coming in the summer. They need a centre-half now to get top four or top five. It surprises me. It’s a good signing – as a Chelsea fan, I’m shocked he hasn’t come to Chelsea, but I’m glad Acheampong is now staying. I’m majorly shocked. I don’t know why, for the life of me, he’s staying in France until the start of next season. With that kind of money, you want him now!”

Did Liverpool make a big mistake by not signing a new defender like Jeremy Jacquet for the remainder of the season? At the moment, the answer seems to be leaning towards a yes, but that may depend on how fit Van Dijk and Konate can be for the remainder of the season, although they do have a lot of competitions to maneuver through.