Get ready for Liverpool 2.0 under revitalized Jurgen Klopp after offseason overhaul

LIVERPOOL, UK: There’s a word Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has used a few times when he talks about the upcoming Premier League season. Fire. His players? “You can see the fire in their eyes.” Klopp himself? “I’m on fire.” It’s what having a bad season — no trophy and a fifth-place finish in the league — does to a big club.

It shakes people, invigorates them. That’s certainly the case with Liverpool amid its first major overhaul in Klopp’s nearly eight years at Anfield. Get ready for Liverpool 2.0 under Klopp after an offseason of big change.

There’s a completely new midfield. A much-changed forward line (still, though, containing Mohamed Salah). The repositioning of right back Trent Alexander-Arnold as a hybrid defender-midfielder.

There’s even a new captain, in Virgil van Dijk. The question, now, is how quickly Klopp can bring this new Liverpool together. Can the Reds once again become Manchester City’s biggest threat in the Premier League? “We try to raise the bar again and again and again,” Klopp said.

“For that, you need to make changes and we have obviously made now a lot of changes. That opens the door for a lot of other players.” The overhaul has been coming for a while because of the way Liverpool had neglected to refresh a midfield that once was the team’s heartbeat, only to quickly become their shortcoming. Out, first, went James Milner, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Naby Keita because their contracts expired.

Then, Jordan Henderson and Fabinho went to the Saudi Pro League. In has come Alexis Mac Allister, Argentina’s World Cup winner from Brighton, and Dominik Szoboszlai, the captain of Hungary and a star of the Bundesliga at Leipzig. Klopp also wants — and needs — a defensive midfielder and three bids for