So much done, so much more to do.
There's no easy way to predict what will happen over the course of a football season.
Last year saw title favourites Manchester City lift the Premier League trophy for the second time in three years, and the realisation, in case anyone hadn't noticed it, that the balance of power in the game has shifted dramatically. So far, so much as expected.
But the team who finished second did so having twelve months earlier been down in seventh place. You have to go back a long time to find a club making such dramatic progress at the business end of the table, and the main reason this is not even more astonishing is that the club in question were Liverpool, a club that makes the extraordinary its business. Arguably the team had heavily underperformed the previous year, and what we saw last season was something of a "reversion to the mean" - a standard result which looks dramatic mainly due to the skewed figures that immediately preceded it.
Then again, this was a Liverpool side that have struggled for a long time now, since Rafa Benitez' last season, in which the baffled Spaniard was presented with Robbie Keane rather than Gareth Bale, in which Fernando Torres suffered his own "reversion to the mean" and found his brief spell as the most potent attacking talent in the league had left him. Injuries to him and Gerrard, the loss of Alonso and the failure to properly invest in the first team by the increasingly bizarre ownership saw Liverpool lose their long held place in the "big four" as they dropped from a position in second place to the worrying lows of 7th.
In some ways, last season was 09-10 in a twisted mirror image. This time rather than drop ignomiously from 2nd to 7th, the club were elevated gloriously from 7th to 2nd. As Torres lost his mojo in 09-10, in 13-14 Suarez raised himself to the level of the best in the world.
The drama of the wilderness years in between has been explored to death, the ownership struggle, the Hodgson saga, the glorious return and shocking departure of the King of Liverpool, and the appointment of a young coach from Northern Ireland, Brendan Rodgers.
In hindsight it is easy to see what led to the fall of Benitez' side. Off pitch distractions, injuries to key players and the gradual erosion of talent available, it was a perfect storm that saw a side with title pretentions reduced to mid-table mediocrity, while the "sleeping normal sized person" Tottenham ran away with the last Champions League spot. Newly wealthiest club in the world Man City also got themselves above LFC for the first time anyone could remember, while perhaps the biggest shock of all saw Aston Villa also finish ahead of the reds.
It took a lot going wrong at once to make that drop, just as last season took a lot going right to reverse it.
The transfer activity of last summer was not what many Liverpool fans had dreamed of. Despite an outlay of £45m or so, there was no real star name coming into the team. With the exception of Belgian reserve keeper Simon Mignolet, none of the signings made had a dramatic impact on the team. Players brought in on loan failed to establish themselves.
And yet, the team improved. Tipped by some optimistic onlookers to make 5th place, and by a few in the red fold to have a challenge at 4th, Liverpool's ambitions looked modest for a club of their stature. Largely the same set of players would complete the season as had played for the second half of the previous year. Suarez was still suspended and would miss the opening games. Sturridge was carrying a knock and might not be fit for the curtain-raiser.
We got behind the lads and went for it. We broke several club records. We came close to a league record for a winning streak. But for a slip from Gerrard, a poor call from a linesman at Eastlands, a moment of hot-headedness from Henderson or a comedy turn from Toure, we really could have won the league.
So where did the transformation come from?
If it wasn't the players, and even the arrival of Sturridge and Coutinho hadn't put us in title-winning form the previous year, then it can only be the manager. Brendan Rodgers had managed to put his stamp on the side. Suarez may have played like a world beater, but he had been here a long time already by then and while always brilliant, was never anything like so prolific. Sterling finally emerged, not as the cocky young lad of the "steady" incident and a string of unsavoury tabloid stories, but as a real talent, with a brain to add to his pace and extraordinary control. Sturridge ripped up trees and record books, making the fastest 30 goals in a Liverpool shirt of any player, ever.
And the way we played, getting the ball down and running at pace at the opposition goal, there was something beautifully simple and irresistable - in every sense, about our attacks. The sheer speed of Sturridge and Sterling, the inventiveness and tenacity of Suarez, the ability to play inside the box enough to win our share of penalties, and the ice-cool of Gerrard in slotting them away, time after time after time.
We were lousy in defence. At times players would simply shift past our centre backs like they weren't there. Mignolet was busier that he had ever been at Sunderland, and at times looked like he had been abandoned by his team mates. We conceded 50 goals, Crystal Palace, in 11th place, only let in 48.
It didn't often matter. The all-or-nothing spirit of football, the "we've got nothing else to do for 90 minutes but score goals and we don't care if you've given up at half time" attitude made us flat-track bullies, but was equally effective on big teams like Arsenal and like Tottenham apparently think they are.
God, it was beautiful. Poetry in motion, indeed. 101 goals. Suarez alone scored more than Norwich as a team did all season. (And of course a lot of them were against Norwich. Before news broke of his transfer, Norwich fans were grateful for the respite of relegation.)
So moving on, where do we go from here?
The obvious difference needs to be mentioned. Luis Suarez is no longer at Liverpool. We all knew, deep down, that his was a gift to be enjoyed while it lasted, that he was only ever on a prolonged loan from La Liga and that his destiny was to play El Classico for one side or other. He's gone, we move on.
Because we've been here before. Last summer, the doom-merchants were convinced he would be leaving and did a good job of putting together the idea that we were a better side without him. The stats actually support them, even if common sense doesn't.
Let's dust a few off: We win more games when he's not on the pitch. Rodgers had to distort his tactics to allow for Suarez and Sturridge to both play.
What we do know is that Rodgers likes pace in his attack. And Suarez was never as quick as Sturridge, or Sterling, or Markovic, or Ibe. Without Suarez, the possibilities open up for a different style of play, an even more direct and attacking game, with defenders forced to track three of the quickest runners in world football at the same time. We'll miss his trickery, certainly, but there could be consolations. Sturridge in particular thrives in a sole forward role. And while Suarez certainly supplied him with ammunition last season, so did Coutinho and so, certainly, can Lallana and Markovic. What little I've seen of Markovic, I've been hugely impressed with the speed with which he runs past a full back, and the low diagonal balls he plays across the six yard box behind the defence. He seems tailor made for a pacy striker with a sweet first touch.
So while there will be games where we'll be crying out for Suarez, we pose enough of a threat without him.
Another thing that worked in our favour last season was that we seem to have lost a little of our sheen. During the Benitez era, teams would raise their game against us, playing defensive and unambitious sideways football. It was something Keane never adjusted to, and it frustrated us to see draws being dragged out against obviously inferior sides. But the last few years had shown that we were just another team. That we could be beaten. So people took us on. And played right into our hands.
The more people think we are weakened without Suarez, the better it could be.
But enough about a player who isn't here, what about those who are? The biggest changes in the line-up this year will be at the back, with two new full backs and a centre half, it's effectively a whole new outfit. Whether it will be Lovren-Skrtel or Lovren-Sakho, the presence of a vocal, tactically aware presence in front of the keeper should make us far stingier.
Last summer, the main concern was how Rodgers could shore up the defence. Instead he focussed on making us more of a threat in attack, which works just as well. With a similar leap in improvement up front now highly improbable, his attention has clearly turned at last to that question. With a stable line-up in front of Mignolet, drilled in a tactical plan that seemed to go absent far too often last term, the team should be looking to concede no more than a goal a game average. Only two sides managed that modest-sounding feat in the Premier League last season. It's an improvement of 12 goals, but this is almost whole new unit. It remains to be seen if Johnson and Flanagan can work their way into the line-up, but they'll need to be good to do so, last season both played by default more often than not, and with wildly differing results. I've always thought Johnson was unfairly criticised, but at times he just didn't look on the same page as the rest of the defence last season, and being forced to play through an injury didn't help. Flanagan is good, but needs stiff competition to make the progress to being at the level where that "Scouse Cafu" thing becomes a little less of a joke and a little more of a valid comparison. Setting the bar high, I think he might get there.
A quick look at the competition shows Arsenal once more brimming with confidence having signed an expensive player and finally won a trophy for Wenger. I'm still not convinced that he's the man to lead them over a full 38 games any more though. The title is won by consistency, and Arsenal have not shown that for long enough in far too long. A lot of their key players seem to vanish in adversity. Man City will be out to defend their title, and with a manager now familiar with the league, it will take a lot to stop them. Chelsea seem to have finally bought the forward to get them the goals they lacked last time out, although Costa wouldn't be the first massive signing in that position to flop there.
Tottenham are now back in their box, and should be looking at competing with Everton for a Europa place. Manchester United will improve on last season, but are too many players away from a real title shot just yet. I see a very close top 3 of us, Chelsea and City. Arsenal possibly fighting with United for 4th and Spurs pipping the blues to 6th place.
