Jurgen Klopp personally requested that Liverpool sign £88.5million star that he said 'is a special player' in 2018

Liverpool need more quality in depth in attack as injuries and AFCON have exposed and El Nacional reports that Eden Hazard is a player that Jurgen Klopp wants the club to sign.

The Belgian joined Real Madrid for a £88.5m fee plus add-ons in 2019 after he won the Europa League with Chelsea and it was supposed to be the end of one era but the start of another for the Belgian.

He was widely tipped to go on and shine in La Liga as he did in the Premier League but injuries have ravaged the prime of his career and he now looks a shadow of the player he once was.

And what a player he was. Liverpool fans often have to hear rival fans compare him to Mohamed Salah even though they're two entirely different players but Hazard is no longer at the top of the European game.

El Nacional claims that Jurgen Klopp personally requested Hazard be signed but the decision was made internally that the former Chelsea star is now 'a lost cause' and 'will no longer be able to be as decisive a player as he once was'.

In 2018, Klopp waxed lyrical about the Belgian, saying: “I know exactly how good he is!

“Eden Hazard is a special player, obviously, and he enjoys these one-on-one situations or one versus two or three situations, he enjoys it.

“I didn’t need that game to know about Eden, it was already clear before.”

The report also names Luis Diaz as a player the Reds are interested in as Klopp is set to face a month without Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah as they head off to Cameroon for AFCON.

I highly doubt that Liverpool are assessing the transfer market for opportunities at the moment as they tend to plan their moves long in advance and don't make reactionary or impulsive decisions.

That said, if it was clear for fans to see in the summer how perilous Liverpool's depth was then it must have been obvious to the decision-makers at the club as well.

Liverpool need to act with more authority and ambition befitting their status as the most successful English club of all time otherwise we will look back on Klopp's time at Anfield with regret rather than with joy.

The German has won the Champions League and the Premier League but without the proper support from the owners, he will never be able to match Manchester City in the long term.