Liverpool's win at Southampton highlights £314m gap Man City can't deny

If Liverpool pull off the near impossible and win the quadruple this season, Jurgen Klopp’s management of his squad is likely to become the foundation of an internet quiz. “Klopp used 37 players in 2021/22 but can you name them all?” You know the sort of thing.

Add in the eight youngsters who were named in match day squads but didn’t get off the bench and the total rises to 45 players. Naturally some men have had bigger and more important parts to play than others but balancing the demands of 61 matches to so far secure 45 wins (plus three victories on penalties) takes some serious squad management.

Rarely has that been so apparently obvious as in Liverpool’s 2-1 win over Southampton on the south coast on Tuesday evening. With many of Klopp’s key men battered, bruised or exhausted after their exertions in securing the FA Cup at Wembley, multiple alterations to the Reds’ starting line-up were inevitable.

Alisson Becker and Ibrahima Konate were the only starters from the triumph over Chelsea who also began the match at St Mary’s Stadium. Klopp has made more changes at other times this season – he switched the entire XI for the League Cup match at Preston – but each time he did so was for an early round of a cup competition, not a vital, must-win, league match.

If any Kopites were worried ahead of the match with Southampton (and the line-up ensured there will have been plenty who were concerned), the lesser lights in the Liverpool squad delivered an excellent performance. It highlighted the depth of talent upon which Klopp can call these days, and a look at the money spent on assembling the teams which took on the Blues and the Saints in the last week only highlights this further.

When assessing transfer spending by a