With the European transfer window set to open on Saturday, Liverpool are still finding themselves 'spinning plates' as their efforts to restructure their squad go on.
The message has been consistent for quite some time inside the club regarding the business that needs to be undertaken this summer. The will be plenty of moving parts and it has required a level of agility the Reds have not always needed in recent years, particularly for players like Alisson Becker, Virgil van Dijk and Thiago Alcantara, who are three who Jurgen Klopp refused to budge on when it came to transfer targets.
While the pool of players capable of improving the squad between the years of 2018 and 2022 was a shallow one given the success that came during that time, the shock underperformance of last season has at least deepend that well this time around.
As July 1 rolls into focus, however, Liverpool are still looking at what can be achieved this summer as they gear up for a first season outside the Champions League since 2016/17. Some have argued activity has been limited due to the European dates for the transfer window and while there is some merit in that, it has done little to delay Jude Bellingham's blockbuster move to Real Madrid.
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Bellingham, of course, was once the object of affection at the AXA Centre. It feels like a long time ago now since some supporters worked themselves into a giddy stupor during the World Cup when the then Borussia Dortmund international was regularly cavorting with England colleagues Trent Alexander-Arnold and Jordan Henderson.
Liverpool privately believed at the time that Bellingham's valuation was somewhere around the £80m mark only to see it inevitably sky-rocket due to his performances for the Three Lions in Qatar.
Once Gareth Southgate's side were eliminated by France at the quarter-final stage, the new Real Madrid midfielder was being touted as a £130m man and by early April it was clear the Reds did not believe spending what would be the lion's share of their transfer budget on one player would represent prudence at a time when more than just one was needed to fix the problems that had sprung up quicker than whack-a-mole.
Bellingham eventually signed for the La Liga monoliths for a fee that could reach £115m and will likely be earning more than any player at Liverpool not named Mohamed Salah.
Interest in Mason Mount was genuine but figures of around £60-65m were always likely to be prohibitive for a player entering the final 12 months of his contract. The Chelsea midfielder remains at Stamford Bridge for now while Manchester United try to negotiate a lower price. The Mount saga had become increasingly drawn-out, which is something Liverpool always try to avoid. Reports this afternoon suggest a breakthrough has finally been made, with United thrashing out a £55m deal with another £5m in add-ons.
The deal for Alexis Mac Allister was wrapped up in double quick time with the Argentina international joining less than a fortnight after the Premier League season had ended. After triggering the World Cup winner's £35m release clause, however, the completion of that particular deal marked the formal handover of duties from Julian Ward to current sporting director Jorg Schmadtke, who officially started on a short-term contract at the start of June.
While it looks like there's been an absence of any progress on the transfer front since Mac Allister signed a five-year contract, it's also fair to say Schmadtke is just a handful of weeks into his contract and discussions remain ongoing behind the scenes.
Liverpool held talks with the representatives of Dominik Szoboszlai this week but it's not clear how productive they were, presently. The existence of a £60m release clause and the conjecture around its expiration date, believed to be June 30, is being cited as a hurdle. Once those terms expire, RB Leipzig can theoretically name their price for the Hungary captain.
If £60m is deemed exorbitant for a first-choice target, however, then Liverpool will find it difficult to navigate their way back towards the summit of the English game in an era where Saudi-backed Newcastle United are looking at similar sums for their own transfer targets and Arsenal are spending upwards of £200m in an effort to build on their regained status as a Champions League club.
Interest in a quartet at the U21s Euros is real but there has been little to suggest any of Khephren Thuram, Manu Kone, Gabri Veiga or Ryan Gravenberch are edging any closer to Anfield. Romeo Lavia of Southampton is another who has been the subject of due diligence in the recruitment department.
Matheus Nunes of Wolves, Conor Gallagher at Chelsea and Brighton's Moises Caicedo are three others who were assessed earlier this year at a time when two lists were informally drawn up in the event Liverpool finished in either the Champions League or the Europa League spots.
Mac Allister's level of experience, age and quality mark him out as something of a unique case this summer. Rarely, if ever, will players like him be available at such a relatively modest sum. The release clause was inserted into a new deal that was signed in October and it is to Liverpool's credit that they were able to muscle their way to the front of the queue for the ex-Brighton star.
Such a transaction is the exception to the rule, however, so while that deal is evidence of a shrewd recruitment department, supplementing the squad to the required level is difficult to achieve when shopping in the sub-£40m range. The market has changed considerably since 2018 when Liverpool last splurged.
Arsenal's eye-watering move for Declan Rice is proof enough of that. The Gunners will pay around £105m all-in for the West Ham United captain after fending off Manchester City. The England international will add a dynamic quality to the Emirates' engine room next term but Liverpool were never going to be near that particular transfer tussle at those kinds of prices. That is more a factual statement than it is a criticism.
Nicolo Barella has his admirers at Liverpool, not least Klopp and assistant Pep Lijnders who gushed about the Inter midfielder in his book that was released last year. "On the Friday night (before the Inter game in the Champions League)," Lijnders wrote. "We watched Inter against Salernitana in the hotel and Barella was superb.
"Jurgen asked me why I was laughing; we were in the middle of a discussion but I was watching the game with one eye and saw him play another incredible pass. 'I’m just so happy that he doesn’t feature against us,' I said. 'Every attack starts with him, it’s scary.'"
With Newcastle closing in on a £60m deal for AC Milan's Sandro Tonali, it is expected that their cross-city rivals would demand much more for a player who was instrumental in helping the Nerazzurri to the Champions League final.
Fede Valverde at Real Madrid is another who has been speculatively linked in recent weeks but the Spanish giants would surely loathe to lose the combative Uruguayan, even if they intend to pursue Paris Saint-Germain's Kylian Mbappe to join Bellingham.
Value in this current climate appears thin on the ground, which is something which Liverpool and Schmadtke - who is operating at an entirely new level this summer - are seemingly finding out both home and abroad.
Inevitably, criticism for Fenway Sports Group and their strictly self-sufficient model of ownership has been loud across social media. The Twitter comments section is not the right apparatus to test the temperature but it is fair to reflect that a portion of Liverpool's fanbase are becoming concerned by the quiet that has drifted across the landscape in recent weeks.
Those at the club might point at their track record in recent years and urge patience and trust but with the start of pre-season now barely a week away, the unrest is audible.
