There are 31 days until Liverpool kick off their Premier League season with a trip to newly promoted Fulham.
But what do Liverpool have to do in the next month? Our panel of writers take a closer look at the priorities for Jurgen Klopp over the next month.
Theo Squires: Incoming business might seemingly be done for Liverpool for the summer, but there’s still work to do behind the scenes ahead of the start of the season against Fulham in one month’s time.
The priority for the Reds now has to be contracts. Having tied Mohamed Salah down to an extension, we know they want to offer new deals to Naby Keita and Joe Gomez, so in an ideal world negotiations go quickly and smoothly and we’ll be seeing the duo put pen to paper in the not too distant future.
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It’s a big pre-season for a number of players, so with Roberto Firmino out of contract next year, and having suffered with injuries last year, he could do with a strong summer. Meanwhile, it goes without saying but some early goals for Darwin Nunez and Fabio Carvalho following their Anfield moves would be most welcome too, especially with that first friendly against Manchester United looming!
Having not had the best 2022 to date, hopefully Salah can quickly rediscover his form of 2021 too, to celebrate his new three-year contract with the Reds, while I want to see Harvey Elliott enjoy as good a pre-season as he did last year as he makes up for lost time after that horror ankle injury.
And finally, it might be a glorified friendly, and hold even less importance being at the King Power and with an Anfield warm-up game taking place the following day, but let’s see Liverpool get their hands on the Community Shield. They’ve lost it twice before in recent years but it’s an easy early opportunity to inflict defeat on Man City and start the season with a trophy.
Mark Wakefield: With less than a month to go until Liverpool’s season gets underway, it’s starting to feel like things are finally clicking into place ahead of the new campaign.
Jurgen Klopp moved to bring three new players to the club as quickly as possible. Darwin Nunez, Fabio Carvalho and Calvin Ramsay are all through the doors at the AXA Training Centre, but will there be any more?
In the other direction, Sadio Mane is the most high profile exit. Having had time to reflect on it for the past few weeks, it made sense for Liverpool to cash in on the forward while they had the chance - but it did not make his departure any less painful.
Much of the summer has focused around whether or not Liverpool will bring in a midfielder, with Jude Bellingham the obvious name. A move this summer remains unlikely, but it’s clear that he is a player that Liverpool like.
If he is the one and only midfielder Klopp wants, then he will not make do with second best or a ‘stop-gap’. The problem is other clubs will almost certainly show an interest.
Should Klopp really want Bellingham, then Liverpool would be wise to do a similar deal they did with Naby Keita and RB Leipzig. Agree to sign Bellingham this summer, but wait until next year for the deal to become active.
Yes, Liverpool may be forced to pay a premium on top of agreeing to sign him, but if Bellingham is the player Klopp wants it’s surely worth it?
Richard Garnett: When a season inevitably draws to a close, regardless of the outcome, football purists are often left with the same feeling of emptiness. What now? When will a ball be kicked again?
This irrational question has an obvious answer - about six weeks later - but that does nothing to quench the thirst of the excitable football fan who just wants to see match action resume as quickly as possible.
Ignoring our own sporting desires for a moment, it is clear that Liverpool were in need of a break. Their quite astonishing quadruple assault was an energy-sapping mission for supporters, let alone the players, but with no World Cup to contend with this summer, it does at least afford Jurgen Klopp’s stars some well-deserved rest time.
There’s no getting away from it, The Reds may have just completed a season that set new standards across the board, but it ended in disappointment. That such effort and attainment could end without either the Premier League or the Champions League trophy is difficult to take, but that is the reality and if Klopp’s side are to go one better this season they must make the improvements needed to edge out Manchester City. So what do they need to do?
There is a changing of the guard up front, with Sadio Mane bidding farewell and Darwin Nunez arriving from Benfica. The loss of Mane is huge, because of his long-term involvement in the front three. Many previous Klopp signings have been afforded a bedding in period before getting regular first team action, but Nunez is not likely to be afforded such a luxury. He is here to start matches. Consequently, it feels important that we get to see as much of the new striker as possible this preseason, leading into the first Premier League game of the campaign.
Nunez will need to build relationships with his new teammates and adapt his own game to theirs, while Klopp looks to utilise the very best aspects of his own, to greater effect. The same could be said of Fabio Carvalho who brings something a bit different to the party. It would be interesting to see the Portuguese youngster in a couple of different attacking roles to see where he can best serve the team.
Liverpool have two of the best full-backs in world football in the shape of Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold, but the idea is to also have two equally adept back-ups, so the opportunity to see just how well Kostas Tsimikas and new-boy Calvin Ramsay can operate on the flanks would build confidence in supporters that the Reds have the depth to go the distance if injuries hit.
With Mohamed Salah’s future now resolved, a further addition in midfield does not feel like an unreasonable ask but all the indications are that Klopp will hold his nerve to bring in the players that he wants next season instead of this one. Should that be the case, a serious look at Harvey Elliott, Curtis Jones and other alternatives to the engine room status quo would be beneficial. There will be games where Liverpool need fresh legs and news ideas and they could well already have what they need in reserve.
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