The shirt numbers available for any potential Liverpool signing in the January transfer window

It's expected to be a quiet January for Liverpool.

That's often the case for the Reds in the mid-season transfer window.

Granted, there have been some big buys in the past. Virgil van Dijk arrived for a club-record £75 million in 2018.

Last year, meanwhile, Jurgen Klopp recruit Ozan Kabak and Ben Davies to address the defensive crisis at Anfield.

AFCON won’t change things

But even despite Liverpool losing talisman Mo Salah, Sadio Mane and Naby Keita for a period when they head off to the African Cup of Nations.

“That’s tricky in each situation but I am happy with the squad and we have options to play and still to play football," said Klopp earlier this month.

“The thing is there are so many games coming up when we are still together – that is the most intense period now – but then we have a lot of games when Mo and Naby and Sadio are not here.

“That means we have to find line-ups for these games, even when we have cup competitions we have to find line-ups for these games as well, and that is the situation so you can never be perfectly prepared for this.

“We are quite confident we will find solutions.”

Things can change quickly in football, though.

A spate of issues in one particular position - such as centre-back last season - or a serious injury to a key player could force Liverpool into the market.

Say Salah picked up a serious hamstring injury while at the African Cup of Nations, for example. Or Trent Alexander-Arnold tore his ACL.

The numbers available

Liverpool could then be forced to change their approach.

If a fresh face does come through the Anfield arrival door, they'll need to be assigned a shirt number.

Now, the days of traditional numbers are long gone. At Liverpool, Alexander-Arnold wears 66 and Harvey Elliott dons 67.

But realistically a fresh face would have a lower number were more used to seeing.

As things stand, number two remains available. It's been free since Nathaniel Clyne departed in 2020.

Jamie Carragher kept the number 23 during his 17-year Reds career before retiring in 2013.

Xherdan Shaqiri was the most recent to don it before leaving last summer for Lyon.

Here's the full list of shirt numbers any signing could realistically take: two, 16, 19, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30.