'Just like a new signing' – Why a tired cliché will be pivotal for Liverpool this season

“This isn’t PlayStation!”

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp is no fool. He is more than aware of the ire within the Reds fanbase that - from the outside, at least - it appears as if his team are resting on their laurels.

We are now mere days away from the new Premier League season and the only additions at Melwood are teenagers Sepp van den Berg and Harvey Elliott as well as experienced back-up goalkeeper Adrian.

In Manchester Rodri and Harry Maguire have arrived at the Etihad and Old Trafford respectively for club-record fees. Down in London it is a similar story; Tottenham Hotspur have finally opened the chequebook and broken their transfer record to bring Tanguy Ndombele in, and Arsenal have done the same with Nicolas Pepe.

Liverpool’s city rivals Everton have made aggressive moves, as have the other pretenders, Wolves and Leicester City. In fact the only member of the top half of the table who haven’t are Chelsea, and, let’s be honest, if it wasn’t for a transfer ban we all know they’d be out in the market like they were Scrooge McDuck.

So you can understand why Liverpool fans are worried.

Of course it should be pointed out that this is actual worry, not the rabid panic and vitriol that was present within the fanbase during Brendan Rodgers’ time in charge.

And that is because Jurgen Klopp and the Fenway Sports Group have earned the trust of the supporters; last season they notched 97 points in the Premier League and beat Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 in the final of the Champions League in June to lift their sixth title in Europe’s premier competition.

That success can explain why Klopp and the club are so relaxed about their current situation. This was a team that was millimetres away from claiming a remarkable domestic and European double. How much more could they really improve?

Well, when the final hurdle is a relentless winning machine run by Pep Guardiola which has just splashed out a record amount to fix their biggest weakness in the centre of midfield, the answer might not quite match up with what Liverpool have actually done.

But Liverpool will be confident that the gap between where they are now and them winning the Champions League is closer to millimetres, rather than the millions City spent on Rodri.

That’s where Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Adam Lallana, Joe Gomez and Rhian Brewster all come in - a quartet of players who missed the vast majority of last season through injury.

Combined they made fewer than 50 appearances: this season Klopp will be banking on them all to hit 35-40 at the very least - individually.

What that means in practical terms is that there is more natural cover at right-back and centre-back, an exciting, pacey young forward who can change games off the bench and, perhaps most importantly of all, more creativity in midfield.

Brewster is a nice addition to the forward line but he will only be a support attack for most of the season unless one of the attacking players gets a serious injury.

By contrast the returns of Oxlade-Chamberlain and Lallana add something different to the Liverpool midfield. The pair’s ability to run with the ball and drive into the box give a goal-scoring option from the centre of the pitch that was missing at times last season. Naby Keita was supposed to be that player but he struggled at times last season.

Keita raises another positive for Liverpool as well. As good as the Guinea midfielder was at times the club will know that he has another level (or perhaps two) to get to, such is his ability. If Keita takes a big step forward suddenly Liverpool’s midfield is packed with world-class talent.

That can allow Oxlade-Chamberlain to push further forward at times to help support the attack, one that might be in need of rotation to help keep them fresh for the key moments during the season.

It should not be forgotten either that Liverpool are what the rest of Europe aspire to be. They are playing catch-up to a team that has done its homework when it comes to scouting and have been ruthlessly efficient in the transfer market, identifying their targets and not settling for second best.

Last season Fabinho and Alisson arrived for a big outlay, with Virgil van Dijk having signed the previous January; all three were pivotal as Liverpool took the next step having been defeated by Real Madrid in the Champions League final in 2018.

Liverpool knew the players they wanted, the perfect players to fit both into Klopp’s style of football and the dynamic within the squad. If there were no players who could have added to that then they were not going to act for the sake of it, as previous regimes might have.

So now, with a squad that they believe can potentially go one better than City, Liverpool can start to prepare for the future. Players like Elliott and Van den Berg are theoretically going to prevent Liverpool from splashing out big on a Van Dijk or a Sadio Mane in the future.

At Borussia Dortmund Klopp regularly had to deal with his team being pillaged, more often than not by Bayern Munich. Even early on at Liverpool the saga around Philippe Coutinho’s eventual departure to Barcelona certainly dragged on the team.

Now Klopp has his entire squad back, plus those injured players from last season. The task for the Reds’ boss is to use that harmony to top City - and bring the first Premier League title to Anfield since 1990.