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Liverpool's desire to sign a new center-back is well documented, and the need to bring one in only intensified last month when summer signing Giovanni Leoni suffered a season-ending injury on his debut.
On deadline day, it looked as though the Reds might have five senior center-backs to choose from over the course of the campaign, but they now only have three until January at the very earliest.
Leoni's injury combined with Crystal Palace's U-turn on Marc Guehi has left Liverpool light at the back, and a new center-back is virtually guaranteed to arrive in 2026. It's not clear whether that will happen in January or in the summer, and we likely won't know the club's intentions until much closer to the winter window.
Two players who Liverpool is being linked with are soon-to-be free agents Dayot Upamecano and Guehi, but if it's a case of one or the other, there should only be one winner.
Guehi is Premier League-proven, an England regular, and he is nearly two years younger than the Bayern Munich man.
There is also the added benefit of Guehi qualifying as a homegrown player in Liverpool's squad.
He is one of the most in-demand defenders in Europe right now, with Bayern, Barcelona and Real Madrid all said to be keen on landing Guehi on a free transfer next year. Upamecano is a good player, but he is simply not on Guehi's level.
Meanwhile, Palace chairman Steve Parish has explained why the South London club blocked Guehi's deadline day move to Liverpool, having agreed a fee with the Reds just hours earlier.
"I decided in the end that, based on the advice that I got and with what I think, that we would have a better season if we kept Marc," Parish told talkSPORT.
"We don't guess about these things. If you look at it rationally, if you look at what is worth the place in the Premier League, the fact that we're in the Conference League for the first time in our history, this is a fairly unusual set of circumstances in which to keep a player.
"If we were fighting between the difference of 10th and 14th, if that was going to be the difference between keeping Marc and letting Marc go, then probably we would have said: 'Right, we should take the money'."
There's no denying Upamecano's clear quality, but it's also difficult to deny he'd be more of a risk, as there's no suggestion he would adapt immediately to the fast-paced nature of the Premier League.
Guehi, however, has years of experience in England's top-flight. It should also be noted that he was determined to join Liverpool in the summer, proving he's eager to join the club.
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