Jurgen Klopp hadn't long been in the Liverpool hotseat when he publicly expressed concern at the lack of faith an emptying Anfield had in his team mounting a late comeback in defeat at home to Crystal Palace.
"We decide when it is over," he stated that November 2015 evening. "Between 82 and 94 minutes you can make eight goals if you like."
The Reds would go on to become synonymous with dramatic finales and their ability to keep on producing beyond the usual allotted normal time, the mentality monsters in devastating effect.
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Yet the most recent meeting with Palace at Selhurst Park last Saturday underlined the continued shift away from that quality by again further highlighting arguably the most alarming statistic of a tortuous season for Liverpool.
It's one worth repeating. Since Mohamed Salah ran away from the Manchester City defence to notch the winner at Anfield on October 16, Liverpool have played 13 Premier League games. Only once in that time have they managed to score a goal beyond the 50th minute.
The astonishing shortcoming shines an unforgiving spotlight on the great weakness this season that was forever a regular strength under Klopp - finding the back of the onion bag.
Without context, Liverpool's tally of 38 goals in 23 Premier League games this season is not that bad. Indeed, only five teams - the top four and Brighton - have scored more. Nine, though, came in one game with the record-breaking triumph over Bournemouth in August, meaning the Reds have scored only 29 times in the other 22 games. Not great.
The 23-game tally is below any of the totals at the same stage of six previous full seasons under Klopp, the previous lowest the 2020/21 campaign when they had scored 44 times. Last term, Liverpool had 60 after 23 games, and what's remarkable is the consistency of the earlier campaigns under Klopp - in 2016/17 they had 52 goals after 23 games, then 54 in each of the next three seasons.
In terms of overall totals, Liverpool's most for a top-flight campaign during the Klopp era came last season with 94. The lowest was 68 two years ago, and even when the German took over partway through 2015/16, the Reds still managed 63 goals.
The weekend's drab goalless draw at Palace was a sixth Premier League game in which Liverpool have failed to score this term. Last season, only Leicester City kept the Reds goalless when securing a 1-0 win at the King Power Stadium, a game in which the visitors missed a penalty.
The comparisons with the 2020/21 campaign - the last time Klopp's side were scrambling for unlikely Champions League qualification - continue with it being the most times Liverpool have been shutout with a total of eight, followed by seven in 2017/18.
There are a myriad of reasons for why Liverpool have gone from the feast of last season to the famine of this time around, but chief has been the loss of two of their three main sources of goals. Sadio Mane, who scored 16 times in the league in 2021/22, departed in the summer, while Diogo Jota, who had 15 goals, has missed much of the campaign through a series of injury setbacks that have contributed to him not scoring in his last 25 games.
With 15 games remaining, Salah is once again Liverpool's top scorer in the league with eight. Roberto Firmino follows on seven, but he hasn't started a league game since November. Then there's Darwin Nunez on six. Next up? Own goals on four. Liverpool didn't benefit from a single one in the top flight last season. Luis Diaz, with three, is the only other Liverpool player to have scored more than twice in the league this season, and he hasn't played since October.
That the goals haven't flown in away from the front three isn't unusual - last season just Salah, Mane and Jota scored more than five. But the difference from most campaigns to this is the spread of goals. Last season, for example, Liverpool had 17 different scorers in the Premier League of which only Curtis Jones and Thiago Alcantara failed to net more than once. Those goals add up.
This time around, there have only been 11 different scorers, with four netting a mere single time. In the 2020/21 season, 16 players scored in the top flight, while the lowest spread back in the 2016/17 season - when only 12 scored - was somewhat offset by also being the only time Liverpool had more than four players score in excess of five Premier League goals in a single campaign under Klopp. Indeed, the midfielders managed 26 between them.
Of course, with around a third of the Premier League season remaining, there is still time for Liverpool to address a number of these goalscoring shortcomings. But it's clear the goals now have to start coming from more than just the usual sources if Champions League qualification is to become a reality.
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