No Mo Salah is a blow but Liverpool will also miss the calm Wataru Endo
The best compliment that Wataru Endo could receive, and there are many, is that nobody is talking about his age any more. Another plaudit is that nobody at Liverpool is talking about Moises Caicedo or Romeo Lavia any more either.
After failed pursuits for the aforementioned defensive midfield duo, signing Endo, a 30-year-old who was playing for mid-table Bundesliga side Stuttgart, was seen as an underwhelming quick fix. Many football fans criticised the transfer for a lack of ambition.
And noting Liverpool were willing to break the British transfer record to sign Caicedo from Brighton, those arguments could be justified in some ways. Missing out on the Ecuadorian felt like a big blow. But given many high-profile exits in midfield, Klopp and Co needed to act and Endo was the man they pursued.
Yes, he is 30 and isn’t the sort of signing that can transform a team for the best part of a decade like Virgil van Dijk or Alisson but, at £16.2million, Endo looks like one of the bargains of the summer in European football.
Honestly speaking, how many Liverpool fans could say they had heard of Endo before this summer? The answer is probably less than one or two per cent. Four or so months on, he is being serenaded by the Kop and talked about as a seismic loss in the next month.
Alexis Mac Allister can play the No 6 role and has timed his recovery from an impact injury on the knee perfectly, with Endo now jetting off to the Asia Cup. But the Japan captain will be sorely missed while he is away in the host city of… you guessed it - Qatar.
Japan always do well at the Asia Cup so Liverpool will not pencil in Endo’s return until mid-February at least, meaning he misses some crunch league games including a trip to Arsenal - they also play
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