Normally when a manager takes over at a new club, he linked with a number of his best former players.
Normally when one of his best former players is on the move, a manager will find a reunion heavily speculated too.
But Jurgen Klopp rarely works like that. He brought Nevan Subotic to Borussia Dortmund from Mainz and did attempt to link up with Mario Gotze and Christian Pulisic again at Liverpool, but for the majority, regardless of how much he rates them, the German tends to stay clear.
In truth, he would find it boring.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has been loosely linked with the Reds on a number of occasions in recent years, but even when Liverpool weren’t the free-scoring machine they have matured into this season, such a move always seemed unlikely
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“If you have had players, you know more about them. You want to learn about other players. That’s how it is,” Klopp said when asked why he hadn’t tried to link up with the Gabon international and Henrikh Mkhitaryan back in 2018.
“I knew quite early that he was going this way. There was absolutely no reason for me to jump in there. That isn’t how we work.
“We didn’t look for players we had already worked with. If you do that, you know their good, their bad and you wonder whether you will do it again.
“It’s not boring (to not try signing him) but you know everything about each other so how can you develop? Where is the next step? Where is the next push for development?
“We could have gone for a lot of players. But, first of all, you have to think: what do I need?”
When you have Mohamed Salah, Diogo Jota, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino scoring for fun, it’s fair to say Liverpool certainly don’t need Aubameyang.
But on the occasions he has been linked in the past, at a time when it has been suggest the Reds were in need of a prolific centre-forward, he would have appeared a good fit.
After all, when you listen to Klopp praise him and talk about their time together at Dortmund, he certainly sounds like a player who would have a place in the German’s Liverpool side.
“Auba has no real weakness apart from his fashion sense,” Klopp joked at the start of the 2019/20 season. “It is four years since I worked with him and we are not really in contact any more but he was my player so I follow his career. I like him as a person so I am happy that it has worked out really well.
“He was playing as a winger with St‑Etienne when we signed him so that’s how we used him at first. Then we suddenly needed a No 9 because Lewandowski left us, and when we tried Auba we realised he is a really good central striker. It did not happen immediately, but over time he developed incredibly in the position and became a goal machine.
“I have to say his finishing is incredible. Combine that with his speed and it makes for a really interesting opponent. Now he is playing on the wing again in a 4‑2‑3-1 which means he has to defend as well, but he is ready for that. He is a really good player.
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“So far when we have defended against him we have managed OK, but it’s never possible to do it 100% properly because of the speed he has. He is a brilliant footballer and really good at being the connecting point too.
Take away the player’s name and when listing such attributes, you’d be forgiven for thinking Klopp might have been referring to a Salah or a Mane.
There are similarities between the trio after all, from being these pacey goal-merchants to national talismans in their respective African countries.
Three years older than Liverpool’s duo, you could argue Aubameyang was Klopp’s Salah at Dortmund.
But the 32-year-old does not have the mentality to reach the Reds’ Egyptian King’s elite standards.
The Arsenal forward shared the Premier League Golden Boot with Salah and Mane in 2018/19, with the trio all scoring 22 league goals,
But he has failed to live up to such standards in the previous two seasons, scoring 14 Premier League goals in the past 18 months. Not even halfway through the campaign, Salah has that in domestic action this season alone.
Of course Aubameyang is playing for a side in his transition and dwindling returns could be the start of a natural decline, with Salah perhaps awaiting the same fate when the wrong side of 30. The Arsenal forward had been one of the most-feared finishers around prior to the coronavirus pandemic after all.
But after being stripped of the Gunners captaincy after his "latest disciplinary breach", any worried Liverpool fans can rest easy.
"We expect all our players, particularly our captain, to work to the rules and standards we have all set and agreed," read an Arsenal statement , following confirmation of Mikel Arteta’s decision.
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Such action was taken after he reportedly returned late from an authorised trip abroad, which resulted in him also being dropped for Saturday's 3-0 Premier League win over Southampton and not being considered for Wednesday's game against West Ham, having also missed the win over rivals Tottenham for a "breach of pre-match protocol" back in March.
You would never find Salah being guilty of such misdemeanours, or Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson for that matter with the England international being the most model of professionals.
And when Klopp did have to deal with such behaviour at Anfield, he acted swiftly and ruthlessly, sending Mamadou Sakho home from a pre-season tour of the United States and banishing him to the Under-23s, with the Frenchman spending the last year of his Reds career in exile.
The German does not suffer fools lightly and part of the reason for Liverpool’s success is his building of a squad that expect and demand the very most from each other on and off the pitch.
While the Reds have the likes of Henderson, James Milner and Virgil van Dijk leading by example, Arsenal have now stripped two captains of the armband in two years.
There is a reason why the Gunners are mid-table fodder while Liverpool are competing for Premier League and Champions League titles, with the fortunes of their respective African forwards mirroring each side’s own fate.
One continues to reach for the stars, hungry for more and more success, as the other treads water in North London.
Klopp might have been full of praise for Aubameyang in the past but if he believed he was capable of reaching Salah’s standards, he would perhaps have broken his unofficial rule and tried to link up with the forward once again.
Instead, the Gabon international is left at Arsenal as they endure underwhelming campaign after underwhelming campaign, with goals on the pitch alone not enough and it increasingly clear that Klopp’s Reds signed an enhanced version of the striker when bringing in their Egyptian King in 2018.
And if there ever had been any fleeting temptation to bring him to Anfield, Aubameyang's latest disciplinary breach reiterates why the Liverpool boss was right to never try and reunite.
