Regarding the squad, you could see this coming from two years away. We had the opportunity to revolve the squad from a position of strength, we didn't and now the team's been allowed to age out together. It happens quickly too, the way it did with Leeds in the mid-70's and us in the early 90's. Both teams looked far out in front and fell off almost overnight.
Look at the spine of the current team: Van Dijk (31), Matip (31), Robbo (28), Fabinho (28), Thiago (31), Hendo (32), Salah (30), Firmino (30 - and I wasn't going to put him in but he's top scorer so far). Someone said they think Klopp is copying City, I think it's closer to say he's copying Real, but this isn't La Liga and the team needs legs as well as experience.
You simply can't have a first team with that many veterans in a league like this, and unless the stats team can pull three or four top players out of the box we're going to have to spend on top players to be competitive, the way we did with Alisson, Van Dijk and Fabinho. It's what we should have been doing in the last few windows, moving older, fringe players on, getting the kids established and buying in top replacements where needed. It isn't even just about age, you need to have some element of change to keep things fresh or players get mentally tired.
And part of that is on Klopp, who's obviously worked wonders but who would have apparently also kept Gini and Mane if possible. He needs to be more ruthless and he needs to be willing to change the way he was when he first arrived. Now we're in a position where we need at least three big players across the defence and midfield and a right back capable of filling in for Trent. It's going to be a couple of big transfer windows and if we aren't in the CL next year it's going to mean spending more than we would have had to otherwise.
