For a club who have prided themselves for years on having one eye on the future, the accusation levelled at Liverpool at the end of this transfer window could be that they in fact had both on it this summer.
Having signed new contracts at the end of April to extend their stay on Merseyside until 2026, Jurgen Klopp and his staff have already put the wheels in motion to build their next great team at Anfield.
The arrival of Fabio Carvalho was a key element of that, having secured his signature earlier this year from Fulham, while the ongoing improvements made by Harvey Elliott as a central midfielder in the Premier League points towards an exciting future of his own.
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But having learned as early as April that their interest in Monaco's Aurelien Tchouameni would come to nothing after the France international and his representatives made it known Real Madrid was the object of his affection, a four-month window to search for alternative ended in the dying embers of deadline day with a last-gasp move for Arthur Melo on loan from Juventus.
And while, ultimately, the Reds' recruitment team maybe continuing to play the long game where interest in Borussia Dortmund's Jude Bellingham is concerned, a deadline-day dash to bring in Arthur from Juve is unlike most of what has preceded it during the Klopp era when it comes to the final hours of the player-trading months.
The search for the Mr Right goes on for Klopp. Arthur, it seems, is at least Mr Right Now. Liverpool do in fact have the option to make it permanent next year for around £32m at least, having paid around £3.5m for his services this term.
The arrival, on paper, represents sound thinking: an injury-hit midfield that now has a hamstrung Jordan Henderson added to its list of absentees that already included Thiago Alcantara, Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, has been bolstered by the arrival of a classy operator with 22 caps for Brazil.
But the fact that it took an injury to captain Henderson to facilitate a post-midnight move for the 26-year-old on deadline day harked back to 2021 when Ben Davies and Ozan Kabak were the sum of Liverpool's belated efforts to address their centre-back crisis.
After missing out on Tchouameni, Klopp, as he has before - most notably when it came to the pursuit of Virgil van Dijk in 2017 - has opted to hold tight, preferring to stick rather than twist. In a conversation with a handful of reporters that included the ECHO on the eve of the pre-season tour of the Far East, Klopp steadfastly stood by the options at his disposal which were at the time all fit, present and accounted for on July 8.
"I don’t think something will happen in midfield, but you never know," said Klopp. "If somebody comes to you and says ‘I want to go’," Klopp said on the eve of Liverpool 's flight out to Thailand in mid-July. "Nobody came to me yet, but if that happens then we have to talk [again]. But if the situation stays like it is, then tell me why?
"I don’t understand. I do not understand. People told me about this discussion, but the last thing that would have crossed my mind is that we have to do this [sign a midfielder]. I know all these things, that we don’t score enough goals from midfield, this and that, but what do we want? This ‘Golden Cow’ that is producing absolutely everything, milk as well!"
"We can go through it," he continued. "Where do you want to start? So, Fabinho, Henderson, Thiago, Milner, Keita, Curtis Jones, Harvey Elliott, Fabio Carvalho, Oxlade-Chamberlain. Now you tell me what kind of player are we missing? One who is offensive, 1.95m and arrives into the box to head balls in? OK, apart from that!
"We have three players in the squad who can easily play as a No.6 - Fabinho, of course, but Hendo and Milly played it fine. Creativity? If we bring in a player just for that, we immediately make it more difficult for Harvey, Curtis and Fabio.
"They can all play different positions as well of course, Curtis can play a line higher and Harvey and Fabio can play there too. Fine. We can play a different system as well, where we might only need two midfielders, but then all these guys can play as a No.10 in the new system. So where is the need for a midfielder? The day when somebody comes to me and tells me why exactly."
The message was clear, despite the attempts to bring Tchouameni to the club earlier in the year, Klopp was more than happy with his lot. Then came the injuries. First, Oxlade-Chamberlain pulled up lame after firing a shot in the friendly defeat to Crystal Palace in Singapore. Next up was Curtis Jones, whose 'stress reaction' to a calf problem was picked up at some point during the Community Shield, where he appeared for the closing minutes. Thiago then followed with a hamstring issue just 50 minutes into the new season before Keita's return from illness was followed up with a fresh issue on the sidelines.
Mercifully, Jones is now at least back in training and match-day squads, but his comeback has been followed up with a problem for Henderson, who has not looked at 100% all season. It was interesting to note Klopp's gradual change in tone in recent weeks, however, when it came to additions to his squad. Having given a firm rebuttal to the prospect a few weeks earlier, the growing injury list clearly enforced a change in tact.
"You all told me - you are the ones who ask the questions - do I need a midfielder? A 10th midfielder!? I am not sure, but we were going for a midfielder who decided to go to another club, which can happen," Klopp said this week, with perhaps more than a wink and a nod to the £85m deal that took Tchouameni to Real Madrid.
"So at that moment it's now not like this 'oh we can't take him, so let's see if we can take another one'. Some players are not available at this moment but for us, it's really interesting. That's how it is.
"Now we can make a decision if we bring someone in, is it the right one? I'm not 100% sure. Short-term? probably yes. Long-term, I am not 100% sure. What does that mean for the next transfer [window]? All these things are going through my mind.
"The situation is the following: we started the season with nine midfielders and every aspect was in; creativity, speed, excitement, young players, technique, runners, fight, stuff like this. Whatever you wanted, it was all in.
"They all have contracts and then you start a pre-season and when a player with a one-year or two-year contract comes in and [hypothetically] says: 'I didn't play often enough last season, I want to go' in that moment, they go. But the one thing that we actively push people out and say 'you are cut out now, what you did was great until last year but now we don't like you, so go'. We are not like this.
"That is how our life is. We cannot just push the button, say 'bring him in' and we worry about all the problems it could create next year or later on. Yes, then we get injuries and all of a sudden it looks like, oh yes, we need a midfielder, definitely.
"We always wanted [a midfielder] but it was always about the right one and we cannot change that just because of some things. Yes, more injuries but that can change a bit and then we say that we can do this now and maybe that would help next year as well. It must always be short and long term and this didn't happen yet, that's it."
So while Klopp's stance is generally an admirable, virtuous one when it comes to his unwavering desire to land his first choices, even the best-laid of plans need to have an element of flexibility to them. It was something he conceded himself on Tuesday, admitting : "Let me say it like this, from time to time I would be ready to risk a bit more but like I say I don't decide that."
The problems the Reds boss has, however, are two-fold in that he is not in charge of how much his transfer budget and the fact the spate of injuries really arrived after the campaign had started when it becomes naturally harder to successfully recruit.
A short-term, low-cost move for Arthur does at least point towards a grander plan further down the line as far as their long-term midfield options are concerned. It simply has to.
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