Andrew Robertson has defended Liverpool's struggles this sesaon.

Reds manager Jurgen Klopp has been forced to try 18 centre-back pairings this season after losing the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip and seeing stand-ins Fabinho and Jordan Henderson add to his selection headaches.

Calling himself "probably the leader at the back", Robertson told Sky Sports: "If you tell any team in world football that they're going to have 18 different partnerships in a season at centre-back, no team in the world deals with that - not one.

"Usually we have Virg, who's very vocal. We have Joey Gomez, who leads by example, and Joel [Matip]. We've had Fabinho, Hendo.

"But now we've got Nat Phillips who obviously wasn't here last season, was out on loan.

"We've got [Ozan] Kabak, who's just a young lad who's just come in, and we've got Ben Davies, who's been signed from a Championship club and needs to take time - and big Rhys [Williams], of course.

"All of them are relatively inexperienced and it's trying to help them, but also trying to help the team by focusing on yourself."