Jürgen Klopp may have no quick fix for struggling Liverpool’s problems

It was approaching midnight when Jürgen Klopp found himself in one more unusual situation at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona. He had been on the receiving end of a hiding, had issued a rare public apology to Liverpool fans inside the stadium and now, uncharacteristically, he tried to fight the post-match adrenaline and keep his thoughts in check.

“I think it makes sense to watch the game back and try to understand so that I can give the right message for the boys,” the Liverpool manager said as he digested a chastening defeat by Napoli. The admission that Liverpool needed to reinvent themselves after their troubled start to the season reached a nadir in Naples, however, meant he had already said enough.

When Klopp first issued the warning via BT Sport after the game it sounded ominously, dramatically, like a Liverpool manager calling time on a successful yet ageing team. But Bill Shankly in February 1970 this was not. Then, Shankly decided in the wake of an FA Cup defeat by second-division Watford that he had to “do my job and change the team”. The Anfield days of Ian St John, Roger Hunt, Ron Yeats and Tommy Lawrence were numbered. Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Virgil van Dijk and Alisson are not in the same predicament today, despite performing in a more judgmental world typified on Wednesday by a journalist asking Klopp whether he feared a repeat of Thomas Tuchel’s sacking at Chelsea.

The question, daft on so many levels, brought the final press conference of the night to a suitably disheartening close for Klopp. He had conducted several interviews by the time he sat down in the media room in the bowels of the stadium. He was therefore more composed, though still visibly angry, when asked to elaborate on the need