Jurgen Klopp has been told to sacrifice the domestic cup competitions for a fully-fledged assault at the Premier League and Champions League trophies by Liverpool’s principal backers, according to the Sunday Mirror.
The demands on Klopp’s squad are going to be greater than ever with six trophies to compete for between now and the end of the season.
The one that matters most, of course, is that elusive Premier League title, but clearly the Reds are also keen to ensure nobody else can get their hands on the Champions League crown.
It seems the club’s owners have been strategising, urging the manager to rest his big names outside of the two biggest competitions to keep them as fresh as possible.
That means that the Reds could face early cup exits again this year after crashing out at the first hurdle against Chelsea and Wolves in the League Cup and FA Cup respectively last term.
Klopp does seem to support the approach of sweeping changes, even though he will inevitably face criticism if his team are eliminated.
Reds fans might, on reading this news, protest at the intrusion or complain that we could have built a squad capable of fighting on all fronts with investment.
But it’s worth emphasising that Klopp saw no need to bolster his squad this summer, instead biding his team and waiting for his top targets to become available.
And though we might not have as many Wembley visits as we’d like, the strategy is defensible. We have plenty of promising youngsters, like Harvey Elliott, Sepp van den Berg, Ki-Jana Hoever and Rhian Brewster, who would hugely benefit from the starts these competitions offer.
It might just be a case of backing them to get us as far as possible, while wrapping our top players in cotton wool.