STOKE-ON-TRENT. — Jurgen Klopp has indicated that he may have to enter the transfer market to buy a defender as Liverpool’s injury crisis grows. The news came after Marko Grujic completed his £5.1m move to Liverpool yesterday. The Serbian midfielder completed a medical earlier this week and put pen to paper on a four-year deal. Grujic (19) will be loaned back to Red Star Belgrade for the remainder of the season.

Klopp convinced Grujic to move to Anfield ahead of Chelsea and Inter Milan to become his first signing since taking over from Brendan Rodgers in October. Grujic won the FIFA Under-20 World Cup with Serbia last June.

But Klopp faces the prospect of having no fit centre-backs for tomorrow’s FA Cup third-round trip to Exeter. Dejan Lovren limped off during the first half of Tuesday night’s 1-0 League Cup semi-final first-leg victory at Stoke after pulling a hamstring.

Martin Skrtel has already been ruled out until February with a similar injury, while Mamadou Sakho missed the match at the Britannia Stadium with a knee problem. Kolo Toure, who came in for Sakho against Stoke, was limping with cramp towards the end, and Klopp is unsure if he will be fit for tomorrow’s game. And teenager Joe Gomez is a long-term casualty with serious knee ligament injury sustained in October.

The Liverpool manager said: “In this moment with no centre-back fit, I would say it is a situation where we have to think about going into the transfer market.

“Two weeks ago we had three centre-backs, that’s a good situation. At the start of the season, we had five. Now we have none.

“We now have three injured centre-backs and the only fit one got cramp near the end, so that was not the funniest thing in the world.

“I don’t know if any of our central defenders have a chance of being fit. Sakho, I don’t think so. Kolo said it’s only a cramp. But I don’t know for him either.” — AFP.

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