The deals Liverpool got done this summer look outstanding at this stage – but it’s the ones they didn’t do that are going to be a worry. Jürgen Klopp’s side will be frightening in attack this season, but at the back it’s likely to be their own fans who are living in fear.

At the same time, by standing firm with Barcelona over Philippe Coutinho, the Reds also sent a message out to the football world: Liverpool are getting stronger, not weaker – their days as a selling club are now over.

The squad Klopp now has at his disposal for this campaign retains all the better ingredients of the one that finished fourth and qualified for Europe last time round and the new faces only add to that quality.

One of the main issues Liverpool have faced since Jürgen Klopp became manager is a lack of strength and quality in depth. Last season Liverpool stumbled when the traditional winter fixture pile-up took its toll, unable to cope with games being played twice a week.

Last season it was just for a month, but it had a knock-on effect on the rest of the campaing and there will be no escape from it this time round – between this international break and the next Klopp’s side face seven first team fixtures in three weeks. Already this season Klopp has felt the need, he said, to even rest his goalkeeper.

Efforts have certainly been made to address this problem.

Jurgen Klopp will have to bring Coutinho in from the cold (
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The Reds missed out on Virgil van Dijk (
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Liverpool needed extra players to help cope with the extra games – but it was vital that reinforcements were good enough to get in the side on their own merit and not just because somebody decent was injured. Klopp has hinted previously that you might as well give opportunities to youngsters from the club’s own ranks than spend out on sub-standard older players as stop-gaps. This is the kind of approach that has allowed Klopp to see exactly what Trent Alexander-Arnold is capable of and has arguably saved Liverpool millions.

There are certainly promising signs that the Reds might just be getting a production line of talent going from the Academy, where Steven Gerrard is now on the coaching staff, but the club wants to nurture that talent and bring it through when it is ready. In the long term that will be music to the owners’ ears but for now it means Liverpool have to spend big and buy players ready to hit the ground running – hence the £35m or so paid to Arsenal for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

One of the questions asked when Liverpool signed Oxlade-Chamberlain was where exactly he fits into a Reds side that demolished his old club 4-0 at Anfield last weekend. The answer is, quite simply, that he hasn’t been bought as anybody’s replacement. He’s been bought as part of a plan to ensure Liverpool have top quality options in as many positions as possible.

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Rotation will be an important weapon in Klopp’s armoury this season, not just to cope with the extra games but also to be able to cope with the different types of opposition Liverpool will face and the different formations he feels will work in all of those situations.

Klopp now has the luxury, fitness permitting, of choosing which top quality players to leave out. Never mind Oxlade-Chamberlain, where would Adam Lallana and Phillipe Coutinho fit into the side that hammered Arsenal?

Chelsea have lost out to Liverpool twice this summer – first of all by seeing striker Dominic Solanke join Liverpool for a fee yet to be decided by tribunal and then the snub by Oxlade-Chamberlain. Then there might be a bit of a ghost of seasons past for them to face in the shape of Mo Salah.

Salah looks set to be the standout signing of the summer for Liverpool and the possibility of facing both him and Sadio Mané at the same time will be striking fear into defenders already.

What will striking fear into the minds of Liverpool fans will be their own defenders. The biggest issue facing Liverpool is one that plagued them for years – their weakness at the back.

The fact that Liverpool seem to have more problems from set-pieces than from open play suggests that the defensive problems go beyond the back four itself, but that only adds to the need to bring the right type of defender in. The Reds are crying out for a centre-back with the character to lead and the ability to act as the manager’s voice on the pitch.

As the transfer window closed without a Reds offer for Virgil van Dijk it was confirmed that Liverpool had indeed botched their best chance of fixing this long-standing problem. By antagonising Southampton early in the window Liverpool had closed the door on any hope of bringing in a player Klopp saw as ideal.

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Klopp certainly isn’t a safety-first coach and his sides are a joy to watch going forward. He seems to prioritise a full-back’s abilities to get forward over their competency in defence – which probably explains why he stuck with Alberto Moreno. Yet that approach seems to be crying out for the addition of a top quality central midfielder able to protect the defenders left behind. None of Liverpool’s current crop of midfielders quite fit that bill.

It isn’t all doom and gloom at the back and Liverpool might just have solved a problem that goes back years by bringing in Andrew Robertson at left-back. He was outstanding on his debut and if that is a sign of what is to come the £10m fee looks an absolute steal.

After banking £200m for Neymar, the kind of money – and payment terms - reportedly being offered by Barcelona for Phillipe Coutinho suggests they were looking for a steal of their own.

Liverpool owners FSG made their stance clear on Coutinho just before the start of the season: no amount of money was going to prise the Brazilian star out of their hands. Strong words were issued from Boston, but it was vital that they were just as firm in their actions otherwise the club and its owners would have looked extremely weak.

Similar strength was shown over Mamadou Sakho with Liverpool making it clear he would only leave if the fee was right and that he wouldn’t be going out on loan. Sakho was clearly never going to get back into a Jürgen Klopp starting line-up, his bridges well and truly burned, but the fact the Reds didn’t use a penny of the fee to strengthen the back four has caused a lot of anger for fans.

In the club’s defence the indications are that Klopp didn’t want anyone else other than van Dijk, that he would rather use the players he has – with Joe Gomez now in the picture too – than bring someone in that doesn’t quite fit his needs.

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The bottom line on how successful a window it is for any club depends on how happy the manager is with it. See Newcastle United and Rafa Benitez for an example of exactly how not to do a transfer window.

Klopp will tell reporters he is happy with the summer business, whatever he really thinks, and he will now get on with his job without dwelling on what might have been. Liverpool’s squad has been strengthened, if not in all the right places, and if the manager can get the best out of what he has got the fans won’t be thinking too much about what might have been either.

It wasn’t a perfect window for Liverpool but one defender wasn’t going to cure all Liverpool’s problems anyway. The Reds are in a far better position now than they were at the end of last season – and still have plenty of money in the bank for when the transfer window fun starts all over again.

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