There’ll be some Liverpool players nervous for their futures on the plane back from Basel today, after many failed to show when it truly mattered in last night’s Europa League Final defeat.
Despite being 1-0 up at half-time, we blew the lead in a second-half meltdown and eventually succumbed to a deserved 1-3 defeat – without putting up much of a fight in the process.
Jurgen Klopp told press after the game that he will be active in the summer transfer window to ensure his squad is more ready for next season – his first full one in charge since taking over from Brendan Rodgers last October.
“This team will be a little bit different next year, that’s clear,” he said, reported by talkSPORT.
“We we will do something with transfers, that’s clear. But, first of all, we need to use the experience because I am sure we will be in a final again and we will have decisive moments again. And if we have decisive moments then we have to react better, all of us.
“It is clear we are not in a European tournament next year so we don’t have football on Wednesday or Thursday so we will have time to train and we will for sure come back stronger.”
Both Klopp’s points make sense. Although it doesn’t feel like much of a silver lining right now, the fact we won’t have midweek European football will surely boost our Premier League performances and overall fitness, much like it did in 2013/14 during our title pursuit.
Still, he’s adamant that new players will sign, and we hope they immediately bolster our problem areas. We need a new keeper, a new left-back, a new centre-back and a centre-midfielder – and we wouldn’t be too disappointed with signing Mario Gotze either.
In terms of outgoings, a number of the current batch will be offloaded in what’s likely to be a fairly ruthless summer cull.