Richard Buxton: To bridge the gap, Reds must change
Liverpool must tweak approach and reinforce to catch up with likes of Real
Liverpool are forever being told, and telling themselves, that this is just the beginning.
Each crushing setback is merely the start of a new era; a blue-skied genesis rather than the latest chapter in a middle-of-the-road purgatory.
The actual truth lies somewhere in between.
The 3-1 defeat by Real Madrid in the Champions League final yesterday morning (Singapore time) exposed just how far the Reds still have to climb before being considered the finished product.
A myriad of questions emerged inside Kiev's NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium, like what if Mohamed Salah had not gone off injured against the European champions - or what if Juergen Klopp had a game plan which didn't pin his side's hopes on the fate of their leading scorer?
Both on and off the pitch, Salah has underlined why Liverpool remain greater than the sum of their parts.
With him, they took the fight to Los Blancos at breakneck speed; in his absence, they were shown up in real time as little more than a team still punching above its weight.
Their Europa League heartache, two seasons prior, served as a springboard to their whirlwind run to the showpiece of Europe's elite club competition, but they remain no further evolved than when Klopp took the reins at Anfield over 2½ years ago.
Where Zinedine Zidane was able to send on a genuine game-changer in Gareth Bale, Liverpool had to rely on Adam Lallana, who had previously played only 16 minutes of competitive action in over two months, to step into the void left by Salah's withdrawal.
The arrival of Naby Keita from RB Leipzig and potentially Lyon's Nabil Fekir will allow Klopp to begin bridging the gulf in quality in his ranks, but that should only be a starting point.
Goalkeepers have played integral roles in Liverpool's rich tapestry of finals, but they have also faltered catastrophically at critical moments in their three most recent showpieces.
But Loris Karius' role in the Ukrainian capital casts fresh light on an area which has been heavily neglected for the past decade.
Like Simon Mignolet and Pepe Reina before him, Karius' error-strewn outing was borne of a penchant for patching up the problem instead of fixing it.
That all three have faltered under the tutelage of goalkeeping coach John Achterberg is no longer purely coincidental.
That "make do and mend" approach also extends to mental fortitude issues, which is why perhaps it was for the best that Jordan Henderson did not join the likes of Steven Gerrard and Graeme Souness in the pantheon of Liverpool's continental cup-winning captains.
Abdication of collective responsibility was once considered an act of heresy at Anfield.
Finger-pointing was confined to the sanctuary of the dressing room, far away from prying eyes.
Henderson, however, is not cut from the same cloth as his illustrious predecessors.
He had been quick to accept the plaudits in the run-up to Kiev but, true to habitual on-field form, went into hiding at the critical moment and chose to focus on self-pitying instead of setting the tone by attempting to offer any reassurance to a visibly distraught Karius.
An unsuccessful Champions League final appearance proved to be the beginning of the end for Klopp's time in charge at Borussia Dortmund. Failure to implement a Plan B and patchy recruitment were endemic factors in that downfall.
History must not repeat itself at Anfield. In Kiev, the German sang and danced long into the early morning in an effort to forget his latest setback.
This summer, both he and Liverpool will have to change their current tune.
DEFEAT NOT THE END BUT THE START PAGE
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