Why Jurgen Klopp can learn (a little) from Wenger with huge turnaround task ahead at Liverpool

They were the immortals, the team who produced Arsene Wenger’s defining achievement. Arsenal’s class of 2004 were the Invincibles, the first side in 115 years to complete an English top-flight season undefeated. But even Arsenal’s nonpareils lost knockout games to their closest rivals, in Chelsea and Manchester United. Now, in a statistical sense, they could be surpassed in one respect. Their superiority in summit clashes is being threatened.

It illustrates the innate illogicality of Liverpool, a team who could fail in their principal objective this season, that they are on course to complete the campaign unbeaten in all competitions by any of the top 10. Their loftiest conquerors to date are Burnley. Even in a wretched 2017, they have been Invincible, albeit on a lesser scale, against Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham and all too beatable when faced by Southampton, Swansea, Wolves, Hull and Leicester.

This is the Liverpool paradox: they can beat the best and lose to the rest. Especially if they miss out on a top-four finish, it leaves Jurgen Klopp with an enigma to unravel. With much undetermined this season, it may be premature to leap ahead to next, yet recent weeks have underlined the scale of the German’s task.

This was Klopp’s best chance, the year that an exile from Europe gave him a competitive advantage in the same way Brendan Rodgers benefited in 2013-14. Unlike the Liverpool side of three years ago, Leicester last season or Chelsea this, injuries deprived Klopp of the luxury of sending out the same side every week. Understudies have been exposed, fault-lines in the squad uncovered, weaknesses camouflaged in autumn and highlighted in winter.

Liverpool have played arguably the most exciting attacking football in England this season, but they have veered from scintillating to sterile. Just as sharpness is essential to them – a worry, considering their results are better when they have longer to prepare for games, that next year could be another marathon foray through the highways and byways of the Europa League – so is chemistry, an indefinable and at times elusive quality.

When Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino, Philippe Coutinho and Adam Lallana possess it, they can seem unstoppable. The notion of four interchanging inside-forwards appeals to the footballing intelligentsia – Pep Guardiola is an admirer of both the concept and the effect – but when the chemistry is missing, the problems of ignoring orthodoxy are apparent. The answer does not necessarily involve touchline-hugging width or a specialist centre-forward, but Liverpool must unearth some form of alternative.

They need new signings, and a host of them. The ongoing goalkeeping farrago is unsatisfactory and if Loris Karius does not develop quickly enough to nail down a place next year, another is required or Liverpool will be stuck in Groundhog Season with Simon Mignolet.

Their defeats this campaign have tended to feature mishaps from the stand-in centre-backs Lucas Leiva and Ragnar Klavan, whether the Estonian’s swipe at thin air at St Mary’s or the Brazilian’s predictably one-sided race with Jamie Vardy on Monday, while Dejan Lovren inspires less confidence when not paired with Joel Matip. Even if Mamadou Sakho returns from loan at Crystal Palace and is rehabilitated, one new centre-back is a must. Two may be.

There is a case for restoring James Milner to the midfield, partly because of Emre Can’s substandard displays, but partly because opponents are cottoning on to the way Klopp’s full-backs are stationed so much further up the pitch than their counterparts at other clubs. Either way, a better left-back than Alberto Moreno, who accomplished a rare double by delivering disastrous displays in two finals last season, is necessary.

Maybe Milner and Marko Grujic could mean another midfielder does not top the wishlist. Yet the situation in the front four is altogether different. Alternatives to Klopp’s preferred quartet are ever more unappetising. Increasingly, it feels that Daniel Sturridge should go the way of Christian Benteke and leave. Divock Origi’s efforts are unstinting, but his finishing is decidedly mixed, leaving him an unreliable deputy. The injured Danny Ings feels ever more luckless. Another forward and a winger are priorities.

It is shaping up as an overhaul, and potentially a hugely expensive one. Yet it is worth noting that Liverpool contrived to post a £19.8 million loss in a season when they played 63 games and reached two Cup finals. Klopp, with his two subsequent transfer-market profits, may have created more funds, while broadcast deals kicked in. In time, new chief executive Peter Moore may generate further funds from commercial activity.

But this is a balancing act that may require bargain hunting, even before the secondary questions of integrating arrivals, and looking at how Klopp implements a policy of squad rotation and if Liverpool can dispose of the deadwood in profitable fashion.

Because next season the parameters change. The demands grow. Liverpool have already heard the sound of sniping from Jose Mourinho, referencing their lighter workload this season. His comments are invariably motivated by self-interest, but they are often pertinent nevertheless. This represents Liverpool’s clearest opportunity to return to the Champions League, perhaps for two or three years.

The honeymoon period of Klopp’s heady first 15 months is already over. Liverpool are plunged into a potentially demoralising reality. And the reality, as the more mortal Arsenal teams have shown in the last 13 years, is that the simplest path into the Champions League can entail defeats in the glamour games but involves picking up the vast majority of points against the lesser lights. Klopp could do with borrowing part of Wenger's blueprint; though only part of it.