All good things must come to an end, and for Liverpool that has just become apparent.
For a decade at Anfield Michael Edwards has been in the man in the shadows, initially performing in a data-driven role but then making the leap to sporting director in 2016.
The promotion didn't do anything to alleviate the mystery around him.
A notoriously private man, Edwards has no interest in accepting credit for the signings of the likes of Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Alisson or Fabinho, and nor does he want to be lauded for somehow getting £142million out of Barcelona for Philippe Coutinho, or lots of money from Bournemouth for players on the fringes of the fringe.
In his years as sporting director, Edwards hit a stride that would have been impossible for him and Liverpool to continue with forever.
It was hit after hit after hit, and that could never go on and on.
Perhaps that thought entered the minds of those at the club as they have tended to shy away from dealings in recent transfer windows, thinking that they were due a bad one at some point, and Edwards is right to want to take on a new challenge with a clean slate where he can forge his own identity.
Wherever he ends up, he will be succeeded at Anfield by his assistant Julian Ward, but that change is sure to make Jurgen Klopp even more aware of what is creeping up and him and his squad.
Old Father Time.
Things have to change eventually, no matter how well they have been going, and Liverpool's squad simply has to get younger in the years ahead. Possibly even the months.
Take the deadly front three, which was topped off so perfectly when Edwards signed Salah in 2017, a year after his data is bound to have been one of the key factors in signing Sadio Mane.
Both of those two will be 30 by the time the season has come to an end, with Firmino having hit the big 3-0 early last month.
Virgil van Dijk, Jordan Henderson and of course James Milner are all there too, as is Thiago - and Gini Wijnaldum, come to think of it, which is why there was only ever really room for one of them.
Edwards won't depart Liverpool without a plan set in place for the future - a plan that you can already see the green shoots of in the signings of Diogo Jota and Ibrahima Konate, as well as the promotion and development of Harvey Elliott and Curtis Jones.
More needs to be done though, and fairly quickly.
Liverpool's squad is an ageing one, and one that right now hasn't managed to traverse the ups and downs of this season without picking up their fair share of injuries.
Time does not wait for them.
Changes will soon have to come.
