Ranking every Liverpool centre-back signed since Jamie Carragher's retirement

Even Jurgen Klopp struggled to settle on a reliable backline early in his tenure as Liverpool manager.

Having made more than 700 appearances for Liverpool, club legend Jamie Carragher has unsurprisingly proven to be a difficult man to replace at the heart of the defense following his retirement in 2013.

We've ranked the 12 centre-backs Liverpool have signed since Carra's departure, from worst to best. Permanent offers only, with our apologies to Ozan Kabak.

12. Ben Davis

An emergency mid-season pickup at Preston North End amid Liverpool's major 2020-21 injury crisis.

As bad as things have gone for Liverpool - six consecutive league defeats at Anfield, anyone? - Davies has never been on the pitch and has only been benched a few times.

Apparently he's currently at Rangers, but we'll have to take his word for it as we're still not sure he actually exists.

11. Tiago Ilori

Given that two-thirds of his appearances for Liverpool were against Exeter in the 2015-16 FA Cup, Ilori's time at Liverpool was less memorable than The Saturdays' musical outing.

To be fair, he forged a decent career at Reading before joining Sporting Lisbon in 2019, where he was reunited with another legendary ex-Liverpool defender, Sebastian Coates.

10. Steven Caulker

A defender has signed as an emergency striker… we can't help noticing that so much. Who cares he didn't score?

READ: Ranking Liverpool's 27 weirdest signings from the Premier League era

9. Sepp van den Berg

Another youngster who has failed to make a league appearance to date, Van den Berg appeared in that FA Cup tie against Shrewsbury alongside all the other teenagers from the Merseyside region.< /p>

Still only 20 years old, there is still every chance that the Dutchman could climb up this list in the years to come. He has made over 50 league appearances on loan at Preston, which could prove to be valuable experience, and is currently gaining top-flight experience at Schalke.

Even if the defender does not return to Anfield, you imagine he will make a profit on the low £1.3m he originally signed him for.

8. Mamadou Sakho

From afar, Sakho's time at Anfield reads like a catalog of Basil Fawlty disasters: since leaving the stadium after being dropped for a Merseyside derby, being falsely accused of for breaching UEFA anti-doping rules until Klopp banned him from the 2016 pre-season Tour of America for constant delays.

However, this was interspersed with impressive streaks of form during Sakho's three years at Liverpool. If anything, that made him an even more infuriating case.

A good defender, who always seemed like a sandwich short of a full picnic.

7. Kolo Toure

An absolute howler at West Brom aside, which left Toure squinting as Mr Magoo searched for his contact lenses, the Ivory Coast legend proved a capable and popular figure at Liverpool between 2013 and 2016.

If we were ranking this list solely on goal celebrations, then Kolo would have been a runaway winner.

6. Ragnar Klavan

If we're being mean, we'd suggest Klavan was the definition of a journeyman footballer, a label only reinforced by the fact that he once failed a trial at Sunderland.

That would ignore that Klavan was actually a half-decent player for Liverpool. Highlights include being named Man of the Match at Goodison Park in 2016 and scoring a last-minute winner at Burnley in January 2018.

Cheap, cheerful and surprisingly good - Liverpool have seen much worse.

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