Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp and the art of doing nothing

When your best-ever Premier League points total was not enough, what do you do next? That is the question which will define Liverpool’s next nine months and the answer – judging by their summer – is ‘nothing’. There have been just three new arrivals. One is a reserve goalkeeper on a free transfer. The other two are not old enough to drink alcohol in this country unless it is ordered with a table meal.

Just 10 weeks on from their club being crowned champions of Europe in Madrid, this inactivity in the market has concerned some supporters. And though standing still is too easily mistaken for moving backwards in football, that anxiety is not totally misplaced. This is the best Liverpool team in a generation or more; easily the best since that last domestic league title in 1990. Last year’s performances would have ended that long wait in all but two of the top-flight seasons since.

In that case, rather than stick, why not twist and hope that any extra yard or edge gained ensures you will not fall on the wrong side of history again? If the gap was just one point, surely it can easily be bridged? But winning Premier Leagues and Champions Leagues is not such a simple game of addition and subtraction. As Jurgen Klopp will often argue, it is about amplification: taking what you have and making the best use of it.

Two summers ago, when Liverpool’s initial pursuit of Virgil van Dijk failed, there was a clamour for Klopp to sign an alternative centre-back. He refused and that decision was questioned when defensive issues undermined a solid start to the following season. It was a risk to wait for Van Dijk, who could easily have had a change of heart in the months which followed. But he signed that January and a year-and-a-half later, nobody would dispute that Klopp was right to be patient.

Shortly after Van Dijk’s arrival, there came similar pleas to replace Philippe Coutinho. In the middle of Liverpool’s mini-wobble in February, there were more cries for a creative midfielder. They can still be heard now, as Coutinho’s minders hawk him around Europe. But Liverpool are more solid, tactically coherent and quite simply a better team without Coutinho. His invention has not been lost. It has simply shifted wide.

Full-backs Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold registered 23 assists between them last season, which is incidentally the same amount Coutinho clocked up in his final 18 months at Anfield. They and the front three – Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mané – are now the main sources of inspiration. Combined, those five players set up 55 goals last season, nearly two-thirds of Liverpool’s overall total.

Compare that to the five players who rotated in central midfield, where Coutinho was stationed during his final months on Merseyside. Jordan Henderson, James Milner, Fabinho, Naby Keita and Georginio Wijnaldum set up 16 between them, mostly due to Milner’s set-piece duties. Their job is predominantly to win the ball, progress it and protect the exposed defence that the full-backs have often left behind.

Coutinho has still not been replaced by a world-renowned, attacking player because Liverpool no longer need one. The point is not that Klopp does not need to spend in order to change and develop his team. That would be difficult to argue after last summer’s £156m investment in the squad, or Van Dijk’s world record-breaking fee. The point is that Klopp knows spending in the market is not the only way to improve a group of players. On every occasion that he has resisted making signings for the sake of it, he has been proved right to do so.

The chances are that Liverpool do not finish with 97 points and win the Champions League again. A small, slight regression is far more likely and the perception of their season depends as much on Manchester City as on themselves. If, say, Liverpool finish in second place again, with 10-15 fewer points and without a seventh European Cup to soften the blow, would that represent failure? Some would argue yes.

But before Liverpool’s season starts properly at home to Norwich City tonight, the club’s Fenway Sports Group owners and Klopp deserve to be trusted when they say that they believe this group of players has more to give, that major changes to the squad were not necessary and that last season’s heights can be scaled again. Some of Liverpool’s best decisions over the last few years have been to simply do nothing.