If Jurgen Klopp was hopeful of the Champions League providing temporary distraction from the questions around Liverpool's domestic issues, a trip to Napoli was probably not what he would have had in mind.
Klopp, for the third time in his Anfield career, takes his team to Naples in Europe's premier competition and the Reds boss is still searching for his team's first goal at the renamed Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.
A 1-0 defeat at the then Stadio San Paolo in October 2018 came via Lorezno Insigne's 90th-minute effort before more late goals a year later condemned Liverpool to a 2-0 reverse in the group stages once more.
The good news for Klopp, at least, is the Italian side are no longer coached by Carlo Ancelotti, but while the likes of Insigne, Dries Mertens, Marek Hamsik and Kalidou Koulibaly will no longer oppose them on Wednesday evening, there is an emerging crop of talent that is being coached by Luciano Spaletti.
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Chief among those is striker Victor Osimhen, who is an injury doubt for the game, while Georgian winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Hirving Lozano and one-time Liverpool transfer target Piotr Zielinski are all important players for the Serie A side.
Perhaps, though, the Italians are a side in transition having lost the influential figures of Koulibaly and Fabian Ruiz alongside long-term staples of the team such as Mertens Insigne in the summer.
Klopp's men may have hit choppy waters on the domestic front having taken just half of the 18 points available to them so far but they remain, for good reason, a feared outfit on the continent.
With three final appearances since 2018 to their name, Liverpool will once again be expected to challenge in the latter stages of this tournament and while Group A throws up a number of interesting away-days for the travelling Kop, with trips to Glasgow and Amsterdam also to come, it's one that many will be expecting them to come through unscathed.
Wednesday night's game represents the most difficult on paper ahead of a visit to an Ajax side whose best players have been lost to the Premier League and a first-ever competitive meeting with Rangers, but it remains to be seen if a new-look Napoli have the same obdurate qualities of the teams who have already narrowly beaten Liverpool at home.
For the visitors, though, they need to steadily find their way again. The results can best be described as 'patchy' so far and while a goalless draw at Everton and a narrow loss at Manchester United can never be considered legitimate causes for concern in their own right, the collective performances to date have dipped well below the requisite standard in recent years.
"We will try to make a great performance against a top team, with enthusiasm and quality we can create problems for our opponents," says Napoli's Giovanni Di Lorenzo. "They have great individual talent, so we will have to do well in the defensive phase."
That individual talent that Di Lorenzo rightly speaks of has been so conspicuous by its absence, with so many of Klopp's top stars off key at present. That, you would imagine, cannot continue for too long, but the more pressing concern is just what the manager does with his midfield options.
A surprise trio of Fabinho, Harvey Elliott and Fabio Carvalho failed to click in the pressure cooker of Goodison Park on Saturday with the Brazil international somewhat overworked at times alongside two more expressive attacking talents.
Liverpool looked a much more cohesive unit when Roberto Firmino was introduced at the break and Klopp is unlikely to repeat that experimental midfield in the Naples cauldron on Wednesday evening.
Thiago Alcantara is back in training after missing the last month of action but it would be a shock to see the Spain international back in the thick of the action so early on. However, given Carvalho's dead leg at Everton, Jordan Henderson's hamstring injury, Arthur Melo's lack of match action and the fact that both the sidelined Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Naby Keita have not even made the squad for the group stages, options are thin on the ground for the manager.
Curtis Jones was another who has been absent at training this week although James Milner could be relied upon to head into the thick of things alongside Fabinho and Elliott. Given his almost unmatched quality among Liverpool engine room options, though, Thiago's calming presence must surely be a tempting prospect for Klopp, if he is anywhere near to match fitness.
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