After a damaging Merseyside derby defeat, it now looks like Jurgen Klopp will not get his fairytale Liverpool farewell.
The 2-0 reverse at Goodison Park leaves the Reds three points behind leaders Arsenal with four games left to play, while Manchester City are a point further back, but vitally with two games in hand. It is therefore increasingly likely that February’s League Cup will be the final trophy of the Klopp regime as a whole new era awaits.
Feyenoord boss Arne Slot is the new favourite to replace Klopp after moves for Xabi Alonso and Ruben Amorim stalled, but whoever takes over this summer will have plenty of work to do. Here is a look at the new manager’s Anfield in-tray…
The Liverpool in-tray: 1. Can Darwin be the man for the big occasion?
Whoever takes over this summer will have some big decisions to make alongside incoming sporting director Richard Hughes.
Darwin Nunez has netted 18 goals and served up 13 assists across all competitions this season, but has been a lightning rod for criticism in recent weeks.
His failure to score at Goodison on Wednesday evening was his eighth blank in nine matches, leaving fans to ask the question of whether the Uruguayan is the man for the big occasion.
At age 25, Nunez should be approaching his peak years, but his missed chances, inability to impose himself and lack of composure against the Toffees was almost painful for Reds fans to watch at times.
2. …And what about Salah?
Excuse us for switching sports briefly, but legendary former San Francisco 49ers head coach once said: ‘it’s better to trade a player a year too early than a year too late.’
Mohamed Salah enters the final year of his Liverpool contract in the summer and six months ago a new deal would have top of the Reds’ to-do list.
But with the Egyptian turning 32 in the summer and having struggled with injuries and form since his Africa Cup of Nations campaign ended early in January, a contract extension is not the slam dunk it would have been earlier this season.
The new regime will therefore need to make an early decision on whether or not to use this summer’s last opportunity to bank some cash for their talisman ahead of next season’s fresh start, or to hope that a summer off and a new coach will rejuvenate Salah and give the team some continuity in a summer of transition.
3. Address the defence
A lack of clean sheets in recent weeks has been the theme of Liverpool’s faltering end to the campaign.
Injuries have meant that Klopp’s back-four has chopped and changed all season, something which has eventually ended up costing them.
Addressing this will therefore be a priority in the summer transfer market.
Virgil van Dijk turns 33 in July and is about to enter the final 12 months of his current deal at Anfield, so finding his successor is of paramount importance.
4. Get playing on the front foot again
Unless we see the mother of all comebacks from Liverpool in the next few weeks, there will soon be a lengthy post-mortem into what went wrong during the title run-in.
One area that this team needs to improve is avoid the kind of slow start that punctuated the defeat to the Toffees, as Everton were all over their rivals from the get-go.
Jarrad Branthwaite’s 27th-minute opener came after the hosts were denied a penalty by VAR, as the Reds found themselves in an early hole they could not dig themselves out of.
This has been a common trait. While their 27 points earned from losing positions is more than any other Premier League team this year and says something about the resilience this team has historically had under Klopp, it underlines the fact that they are giving themselves too much to do.
5. How to approach the transfer market
It’s tempting to think that a new manager and new sporting director will also mean a squad overhaul as the new regime looks to bring in their own men.
After last summer’s midfield overhaul and given the quality Liverpool have across much of their squad, this is not a team that needs huge surgery.
With the Reds set to return to the Champions League next season, depth is more important than ever, especially given the new expanded format for Europe’s biggest competition that will see an extra two group games.
Should Slot get the nod, he will value a lot of the same qualities that Klopp did, making this more of an evolution than the revolution that the German needed to inspire when he arrived on Merseyside in 2015.
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