When Liverpool made their £36m move to land Frenchman Ibrahima Konate back in May they were one of the first clubs to show their hand in the transfer market.
The 22-year-old officially became a Reds player on July 1, Liverpool agreeing to pay his release clause at German side RB Leipzig, and it had given some hope that this summer was to see a concerted effort from owners Fenway Sports Group to invest in the team.
FSG would argue that they have done exactly that this summer, with new deals for Virgil van Dijk, Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho, Andrew Robertson and Jordan Henderson all agreed, with the club hopeful of tying down Mohamed Salah on new terms as well.
All that has been welcomed, although it has seen FSG commit to an even higher wage bill next season, with the Reds already, at £325m, having the second biggest in the Premier League. They will save some money on the balance sheet through reduced amortisation charges on the likes of Alisson and Van Dijk but they will be creeping closer to the 70 per cent wages to revenue ratio that UEFA recommend isn't breached.
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But for all the new deals signed the lack of activity in the market is of huge concern to many Reds fans, particularly given what transpired last season.
FSG owe Jurgen Klopp a debt of gratitude for how he managed to earn a third placed finish in the Premier League last season despite missing Van Dijk, Joel Matip and Joe Gomez from his defence, his new signings such as Thiago Alcantara missing large chunks of the campaign and having just £3m spent in January on defensive reinforcements, one from Preston North End and one from a side rock bottom of the Bundesliga.
The Reds finished the season with two players at centre back who had been playing in Germany's second tier and English football's sixth tier 12 months prior. Liverpool put together a superb run of form to book themselves Champions League football for this season, guaranteeing the club at least £50m and the potential for more than £100m.
Konate, it is accepted, is one for the future, and big things are expected. He is the kind of profile that Liverpool need after engaging so many of their key players on longer deals that will take them well into their 30s. The Reds needed to add younger players to aid the next cycle and the Frenchman was seen as the first piece of that puzzle.
Three games in and Konate is still waiting for his Premier League bow. It will come but the wait goes on for now.
For Liverpool fans, though, they must watch as their rivals add to their squads, and add game changing players at that. Romelu Lukaku in at Chelsea, Cristiano Ronaldo, Jadon Sancho and Raphael Varane in at Manchester United, Jack Grealish in at Manchester City, it has been a summer where the top clubs have continued to spend. Aside from Liverpool that is.
Konate cost £36m, but the sales of Xherdan Shaqiri, Taiwo Awoniyi, Marko Grujic and Harry Wilson equate to £38m, meaning the Reds are £2m up in this window and have covered the cost of Konate's wages and then some. And that isn't factoring in the wages of Gini Wijnaldum that are now off the books after he departed for Paris Saint-Germain.
For many fans it was accepted that £150m deals for the likes of Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland were flights of fancy, but engaging in the market in other areas to provide depth and genuine quality to try and progress the side would have been expected.
Manchester United's recent spend has been heavy, but after a period of stagnation they needed something to rejuvenate the team on the pitch and the brand off it. Ronaldo and Sancho absolutely do that for them.
Liverpool need the Champions League. It is imperative to their business model under FSG now, something evidenced by the rising wage bill that has shot up by 95 per cent since 2015, the last season that they were without a place at European football's top table.
But for the 2020 Premier League champions there is no sure-fire thing now when it comes to Champions League qualification. Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City, they all want a slice and there is now less room for error.
Liverpool have to fight on both fronts with less squad depth, albeit able to welcome back three players from long-term injury, but has Klopp been given the funds to allow for them to progress, or have they simply stood still while the rest have managed to reassess and gain ground.
FSG have a business model that they have been honest about in the past. Any investment on the pitch is underpinned by the financial health of the business and their ability to effectively trade players to provide transfer funds. It brought a Champions League win in 2019 and a Premier League title in 2020, but that was the squad reaching its crescendo and there seems to have been little done to try and stave off the diminuendo. That might not have arrived yet, with the reasons for last season's struggles obvious, but it will arrive if the next cycle isn't put into place.
Emerging from a pandemic and the financial chaos that was caused is something that all clubs are having to deal with, and those who manage their way financially through the wreckage will be the ones who emerge stronger at the end of it. You only need to glance across to the money leaving Spain and Italy to see that financial recklessness comes home to roost eventually.
But Liverpool were in a strong position going into this window when compared to many of their rivals.
They have great revenue streams that, despite tumbling from £533m to £490m last season, will likely bounce back when the financial year ending May 2022 is revealed. The financial year ending May 2021 will be another one of heavy losses for Liverpool, with some estimates placing the overall Covid loss at some £123m, but that was after a season of no fans and the impact of deferred broadcast revenues and rebates. Signings made now would be on the 2022 accounts and amortised over the length of any deal so, for example, a £60m deal for a player over a five-year contract would actually show as £12m per year on the balance sheet.
Liverpool's financials have been consistently strong in recent seasons and their last loss-making campaign was 2015/16, a season where they finished eighth in the Premier League. Their financial success has been linked to their success in leveraging what they have done on the pitch, and in order for that to continue they will need to invest again.
In a bid to try and ease the burden and worry over breaching Financial Fair Play rules, UEFA have allowed clubs to roll two years into one when it comes to Covid losses, meaning that losses greater than the permitted €30m over a rolling three-year period would be permitted, and that owners can cover those losses. Losses over the €30m would have to be proved to have been directly related to the impact of the pandemic.
Liverpool were in a good place before Covid and had plenty of room to manoeuvre when it came to FFP, their wages to revenue at around 65 per cent. A look at someone like Leicester and their wages to revenue ratio exceeds 100 per cent, yet they have still sanctioned the signing of a one-time rumoured Liverpool target in Patson Daka, as well as Boubakary Soumare and Jannik Vestergaard.
Even Arsenal, a club who have been mired in crisis and without European football have spent in excess of £130m this summer, although early signs would suggest that their troubles are far more deep rooted than adding two or three players.
Liverpool are a well run club when it comes to business practice. But the issue is that football clubs are more than just businesses and there has to be occasions where owners must speculate to accumulate. The dynamic has changed at Liverpool under FSG in that they have gone from chasing honours and making sure they bridge the gap to being the team people shoot at, a team that needs to remain at the summit to preserve its model.
Other clubs have seen the opportunity to try and make a play in this window at a time when it has contracted, there is weakness in the likes of Spain, Italy and France and that not all of the major players are able to come to the table.
The hours tick away on transfer deadline day and there is little sign of any incomings at Anfield unless a late play is made, something that often points to panic more than anything. You sense that if Liverpool had the intention to add then they would have done it already.
It feels like an opportunity that may be missed and one that, like last season, risks potential financial pitfalls.
