Caulker: Liverpool are good – they battered me

Steven Caulker has insisted that he is up for the “challenge” of playing for Liverpool following his loan move to Anfield from Queens Park Rangers.

Incidentally, Caulker’s final outing as a Southampton player came in December’s 6-1 defeat against Liverpool in the Capital One Cup.

He will provide cover to what has become a threadbare unit with hamstring injuries to Martin Skrtel and Dejan Lovren sidelined for a few weeks, with Kolo Toure (cramp) and Mamadou Sakho (knee) expected to return to face Arsenal on Wednesday.

It is understandably not a signing that excites Liverpool supporters, and is certainly one that leads to plenty of head scratching, but it is a sensible deal for the club at a crucial stage of the campaign.

Klopp’s injury-hit side go into their meeting with Arsenal on the back of a win over Stoke City in the League Cup and draw with Exeter City in the FA Cup.

“I always say with players that I don’t sign contracts but it’s a contract for one year”, Klopp said. Hence, there was no reason for the Dutchman to deny Caulker the opportunity to play for Liverpool. Talks on the five-year deal began before Christmas with Klopp keen to retain the goalkeeper who has attracted criticism for several errors yet kept more Premier League clean sheets in 2015 than any of his rivals.

The former Tottenham Hotspurs and Cardiff City man was on loan at Southampton.

But the defender also declared that Liverpool are a club which he has “watched for many years” and said he’s “very aware of the style in which they play and the expectations of the club” – again reiterating that it’s a challenge he’s “very much looking forward to” getting to grips with. He will be here today and then we can start working, so everything is good. We want to play good pressing, we want to press the opponent and so they have to play long balls.

“And we’ve found it with Steven Caulker”.

The Reds boss will assess Caulker for the first time on Tuesday afternoon, when he joins a 4pm training session.

And with the Arsenal game followed by another home game against Manchester United on Sunday, the manager has a week to look forward to.