Not Camara: Andoni Iraola already has one Liverpool transfer lined up for January

Ifeanyi Ndukwe could be in line to bolster the Liverpool defence in January.

James Pearce reports for The Athletic that the Austrian centre-half only needs to play one league game to become eligible to play competitive football for the Reds.

The 18-year-old impressed in pre-season but lacked the points at the time to qualify for a UK work permit.

Liverpool may have impressive depth at centre-half come the new year

There is a world in which the Merseysiders could draw on Ndukwe as a resource come January.

At present, there are technically enough in the way of options available to see Liverpool through the coming months.

Jeremy Jacquet and loan signing Ronald Araujo have already impressed in the famous red shirt following their summer arrivals, and there’s an expectation that Joe Gomez should be available once again this September.

Giovanni Leoni, however, will take some more time to recover from his ACL injury picked up last year and isn’t expected to return much before the end of the year.

Assuming all goes well with the Italian’s recovery, of course, Andoni Iraola could then be able to call upon:

Virgil van Dijk

Jeremy Jacquet

Ronald Araujo

Giovanni Leoni

Ifeanyi Ndukwe

Joe Gomez

Far from terrible depth at centre-back, but it is reliant on the club somehow surviving through to the new year without picking up any further injuries in the position.

Reminder of Ifeanyi Ndukwe’s dominant display vs Monaco

Not to get overly excited about what a teenager could offer this season, but we’re sure it won’t have escaped fans’ memory just how dominant Ifeanyi Ndukwe appeared in pre-season.

His 45 minutes against Monaco certainly caught the eye, with the defender winning all ground and aerial duels attempted.

* Ifeanyi Ndukwe’s stats from a 45-minute pre-season appearance (Fotmob)

We should emphasise that we have no expectation of him earning a ludicrous amount of minutes post-January.

However, we still don’t have a clear picture of what condition Giovanni Leoni will return in and how soon he’ll be able to take to the pitch after such a serious injury.

So there could be a great opportunity for Ndukwe to get game time in Europe’s toughest league following what we hope will have been an impressive loan spell with Levante.