Only those Liverpool supporters who haven't been paying attention - and, given the form of the Reds this season, it's understandable - would have been surprised by the comments of Jurgen Klopp regarding the need to rebuild his team.
"It was one of the main reasons why I signed a new contract because I knew it’s necessary," the Liverpool boss told the BT Sport podcast Michael Calvin's Football People this week. “It will not go overnight. I know the majority of the outside world is just interested in the short term but we have to be long-term focused as well, and that’s what we are."
Klopp has long hinted at a rebuild - referring to a "transformation" of his team back in May - but the reality is the Reds squad has always evolved during his tenure. The debate at present, of course, is whether that process has been sufficiently accelerated over recent seasons.
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Beyond doubt, though, is that Liverpool have been working with one eye on the future in their dealings in the transfer market since winning the Champions League in 2019. Of the 17 players they have paid money to recruit, only two - Thiago Alcantara and Ben Davies, the latter of whom didn't kick a competitive ball for the club - were aged over 25 when bought.
Around £230million has been committed to bringing in new players over the last 18 months alone. But those signings point to a conundrum with which Klopp has been grappling for much of the campaign.
Can a rebuild really be called such if it primarily involves using the same bricks in the same places? It would, to stretch the construction analogy, end up looking pretty much like the same house. Nothing much will have changed.
Consider this. Liverpool have played 30 games this season, 19 in the Premier League. And between them, the six senior players who have been recruited since the end of the 2020/21 season have managed just 47 starts in that time.
Darwin Nunez, the potential club record £85m arrival from Benfica last summer, has made the most, but has still only thus far mustered 15 starts in a debut campaign occasionally hampered by suspension, injury and the obvious need to adapt to his new surrounds.
Luis Diaz is next with 11, but hasn't featured since suffering a knee injury at Arsenal in October and is unlikely to be seen again until March. Ibrahima Konate is on eight having missed the first few months of the season with his own knee issue, while 20-year-old Fabio Carvalho has also started eight times as he adjusts to the leap up to the Premier League.
Cody Gakpo has the mitigation of having only arrived at the start of the month, and with four consecutive starts is, similar to Nunez and Carvalho, still adjusting to the step up in level. And while not expected to be a regular this season, a historic injury issue has contributed to teenager Calvin Ramsay making just a solitary start.
Even Arthur Melo, who has brought in on loan on transfer deadline day in the summer, has made just one brief substitute appearance before succumbing to injury. And going further back, Diogo Jota, who was signed in September 2020, has started just four games.
In fact, in terms of most minutes played for Liverpool this season, in the top 13 only Nunez, Harvey Elliott and Thiago were bought in the last four years. Seven of the top 13 are aged 30 or above. Is it any wonder the Reds have too often looked a little leggy compared to their rivals? The older players are being asked to shoulder the workload with the younger squad members in the treatment room.
It's also telling that, of the signings in the last four years, only Jota has had anything like extensive Premier League experience and didn't require any adaptation. It is in stark contrast to earlier in the Klopp era when the likes of Sadio Mane, Gini Wijnaldum, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson all arrived with plenty of top-flight knowhow and swiftly became key figures as Liverpool became champions of Europe, the world and England.
"All the problems you have in a transition time period, we have an awful lot of injuries, and that makes life really complicated," added Klopp. "I know the majority of the outside world is just interested in the short term but we have to be long-term focused as well, and that’s what we are."
Liverpool's long-term rebuild has been underway for some time. But the perfect storm has left Klopp largely without his new bricks and mortar. Only time will tell if it's a place worth inhabiting.
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