If the curtain call for a long and difficult season was the cue for many in the Liverpool set-up to pack their suitcases, Jurgen Klopp will enjoy no such luxury. Not just yet, anyway.
This close-season at Anfield is arguably more important than what has preceded it on the pitch in recent weeks as the Reds hurtle towards something of a new era at the football club.
While June is typically the quiet month at Liverpool, the situation the club find themselves in with regards to rebuilding their squad and making key appointments off the pitch means few on the inside will be jetting off for their annual leave presently.
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Jorg Schmadtke has signed a short-term agreement to become the club's next sporting director. He will officially begin his new role on Thursday and is set for a very lively start.
In addition, influential head of research Ian Graham will now be replaced by Will Spearman as the latter is promoted to an important behind-the-scenes role with regards to transfer targets. Head of academy recruitment, Matt Newberry, meanwhile, will oversee the loan and pathways role until the end of the summer as David Woodfine prepares to leave the club.
Those moving parts, along with the need to make a success of the coming transfer window means that Klopp's hard-earned and likely much-needed time away will have to wait.
Instead, as the manager himself hinted after Sunday's chaotic 4-4 draw with Southampton, there is much work still to be done with regards to recruiting.
“I don’t feel like I need a break, not at all," said Klopp at St Mary's. "Honestly I’m completely fine. If you’d have asked me 11 games ago if you want to have a break, then I’d have thought about it, to be honest! But I’m absolutely fine, full of energy.
"I have a break – I don’t have training and those kind of things – but a pretty busy period hopefully starts now as well in a different area of the game and I’m more than happy to do that. I will find time to re-energise and then we start again in July.”
What happens in the coming weeks of what is usually a more subdued part of the elite-football calendar will be hugely instructive to Liverpool's long-term future. A rebuild is needed, regardless of the differences of opinion to what actual amount of new players represents an agreeable transfer window.
Jordan Henderson, for example, recently stated that, for his money, "a rebuild is changing an entire team – which I don’t think we will be doing." The Liverpool captain did concede, however, that he was "sure players will be coming in at some point to give us a boost and freshen things up a bit."
Those inside the Liverpool squad itself are fully aware their places are likely to come under threat by the arrival of fresh blood into the ranks. While that is part and parcel of football at the end of every season, there's been an acceptance in the team for some time that a critically important period of player trading is nearing.
Speaking back in March after the 1-0 defeat at Real Madrid, Virgil van Dijk said: "Obviously players are going to leave. That’s obviously been announced so we have to [recruit], if we want to be where we have been the last five years, then we obviously need quality imports, especially with those players leaving. I think that’s quite obvious.
"But everyone knows that’s going to be very difficult, it is going to be very difficult to find the right players but the club has to do their job in this case."
The Netherlands captain expanded further on the theme after the recent draw with Aston Villa, saying: "Everybody knows we've been going through a little bit of a transition and, if I'm a player on the rise and I have options to go to the next step and Liverpool is knocking on my door, then I would be very, very interested."
In an ideal world, Klopp's business would be concluded before Liverpool fly out to their German-based training camp in mid-July. The Reds boss suggested on Friday that the next "six or seven weeks" will be pivotal to the process of bolstering his options.
"The better the players you want, the lesser is the desire of the other club to let him go," he said. "And that's exactly what we are prepared for. But it's a long window and a long pre-season and a long break in between, so we have time if we get in players tomorrow or in six or seven weeks. It is not a game-changer for me, to be honest.
"In an ideal world they all sign tomorrow and I can tell them when to be and we can start giving them the plans for the summer break but that will not likely happen. But everyone knows that’s going to be very difficult, it is going to be very difficult to find the right players but the club has to do their job in this case."
It might be unwise to take the Liverpool manager's "six or seven weeks" comment literally but it is interesting to note that the visit to the Black Forest training camp comes less than two months from now and while there were maybe fewer issues to iron out last year, the Reds' activity 12 months ago is a good indicator for what might follow this time around.
Liverpool had already confirmed Fabio Carvalho's arrival before the end of the previous campaign when current sporting director Julian Ward thrashed out talks with his Benfica counterparts to seal a £64million deal for Darwin Nunez. The Uruguay international was officially confirmed as a Reds player on June 14 before Calvin Ramsay all but completed the incomings a few days later.
It can certainly be argued that the makeup of the squad at the time meant only tweaks were needed as they came off the back of a domestic cup double, 92 Premier League points and a Champions League runners-up spot, but last summer's early flurry should encourage those hopeful of some quick, impactful business.
Alexis Mac Allister, of course, remains top of that wanted list and it was intriguing to see the Argentina international virtually confirm his own departure from Brighton this summer with an emotional reaction to the final whistle of a historic campaign for him on Sunday afternoon.
The World Cup winner, having inspired Brighton to a Europa League finish in sixth, was tearful at the full-time whistle as he almost certainly signed off from four years on the south coast.
If analysing the post-whistle body language is best left to the professionals, however, Brighton boss Roberto de Zerbi confirmed that both Mac Allister and Moises Caicedo, another in-demand midfielder, are expected to now seek pastures new.
The Brighton boss said: “I think it can be the last game for Alexis Mac Allister and Moises Caicedo. It is right that they can leave, they can play at a higher level.”
It was a refreshing piece of honesty given the subterfuge and brinkmanship that usually accompany transfer dealings in the Premier League. Liverpool will have certainly been listening to De Zerbi's admission as they plot their next phase under Klopp. It promises to be a busy June and those vacation plans are on hold, for now.
*A version of this story was originally published on 29th May.
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