As Williams struggles, Klopp admits he made a mistake with Liverpool defender

Much has been written and said in this past week about on loan Liverpool defender Rhys Williams and his lack of game time at Swansea since completing a loan move back in the summer.

Reports have been surfacing for a few weeks that Liverpool are unhappy about his lack of appearances and that a recall is on the cards so it was perhaps little surprise to see him in the starting line up Saturday although it was suggested in the post match press conference that this was as much about an injury to Ben Cabango as a demand from Liverpool to play the defender.

On the evidence of the display alone though it is easy to think that he will be on his way back to Liverpool very soon and not because of a lack of game time but the fact he doesn’t appear to fit as seamlessly into our defence as we would like.

He was caught napping by Andy Carroll for the visitors second goal on Saturday and often looked nervous as the visitors came towards us.   On the plus side he looked composed on the ball which is as much about his Liverpool heritage as much as anything.

On the very day that Williams though was struggling in South Wales, Reds boss Jurgen Klopp was singing his praises at Anfield and wondering if he was too protective of the defender last season when he had a lot of injury worries on his mind within the squad.

Klopp was speaking after watching his side beat Southampton 4-0 to keep the pressure up at the top of the Premier League.   Liverpool were Champions in 2019/20 but a fairly miserable title defence last season was the subject of the questioning when the manager was asked if he felt last season was a wasted season due to the number of injuries.

“No, I learned a lot. I learned a lot.  I made mistakes, so it’s easy for me to look back and think, ‘That was wrong, that was wrong…’ but in the moment when we made decisions, when we put the midfielders back and then played without protection in midfield, last line deeper, not really compact in a lot of moments, maybe we should have just played Rhys [Williams] and Nat [Phillips] completely together earlier and trusted the boys more.

“In that moment I thought they were not ready, later on they were ready and they could both play, no problem, no doubt about that. ”

The questions on Rhys Williams for Russell Martin are much easier.   He needs to decide if Williams will add more to our defence then we already have in the likes of Cabango or even Brandon Cooper.  Then if he decides that is the case then he has to decide whether he can afford the game time that he needs to get the consistency that could be there.  Three goals at Luton, three more at home to Reading will do nothing to increase confidence in Williams or indeed our confidence in him.

I suspect we will see an early end to this loan deal but its also clear that if that is the case then Williams has a fan at Anfield and there is no more important fan to have than the club manager.