As new targets emerge after Alexis Mac Allister, Liverpool’s £80 million investment is about to pay off.

Liverpool has revealed new information regarding their stadium, signings, and schedule as they prepare for a significant summer of rebuilding both on and off the field.

In both a literal and figurative sense, Liverpool’s summer rebuild is starting to take real shape.

After a season of underperformance that resulted in the lowest finish of any of Klopp’s seven full terms as manager in fifth, much of the discourse in recent weeks and months has been of a Reds squad in need of a restructuring, particularly in the midfield ranks where James Milner, Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain have now departed as free agents and Arhur Melo has returned to Juventus.

But while that engine-room metaphor has been stretched to breaking point with regards to the work Klopp and his recruitment team need to undertake in the transfer window, there’s also a more tangible building project that is picking up pace at Anfield right now as the club gets set for something of a new era.

The Anfield Road development project is now in its final stages before Liverpool formally opens their new-look stadium with a capacity of 61,000. In order to help the Reds host their largest crowds in decades, the £80 million rebuild will add an additional 7,000 seats to the storied stadium. The speed at which the work has been completed in the last 18 to 24 months has impressed those who have regularly observed it up close. Following the completion of the £110 million Main Stand in 2016, the sum spent on infrastructure improvements at Anfield in recent years will be close to £200 million.

The start of the summer-long construction plans that will see one of the most renowned stadiums in the world football reopen in August with a vibrant new look was the final whistle of the final home game of the season against Aston Villa on May 20. Cranes currently populate the pitch as the roof is taken off the Anfield Road end to make way for a new one.

The summer schedule is crucial for Liverpool as a team in many ways because they want to finish the Anfield expansion in time for the new season and get the necessary work done in the football operations department to ensure that their Champions League exclusion is only temporary.

As Brighton’s Alexis Mac Allister, the Reds’ first signing of the summer, approaches, momentum is building in the recruitment department. Liverpool made the Argentina international a primary target after taking the decision earlier this year to step away from the chase for Borussia Dortmund’s £130m-rated Jude Bellingham.

The existence of a clause in Mac Allister’s contract should make negotiations with Brighton easier, and Liverpool are hoping to sign the 24-year-old before he departs for international duty with the World Cup champions when they play Australia on June 15.

From there, attention will then likely turn to further midfield reinforcements. Mason Mount has been a long-standing target but it appears as though the Chelsea midfielder is edging closer to Manchester United.

Southampton’s 19-year-old midfielder Romeo Lavia has his admirers as does Wolves’ Portugal international Matheus Nunes, while respective reports in France and Germany last week linked the Reds to Nice’s Khephren Thuram and Manu Kone of Borussia Monchengladbach. Bayern Munich’s Netherlands international Ryan Gravenberch is another who is said to be of interest.

A proactive and aggressive pursuit of key targets is anticipated throughout June before the team reports back to duty in July.
With Jorg Schmadtke, the club’s new sporting director, initially joining on a temporary basis, there is little time to waste for the German to make his mark at Anfield. Additionally, with Klopp eager to wrap up his business as quickly as possible.

July 8 will mark the first day of pre-season training at the AXA Centre with Klopp’s players set to be whipped into shape with the now infamous lactate test.

The test requires the Liverpool players to sprint as hard as they can from one pole to the next before the whistle is blown, typically by renowned drill sergeant Andreas Kornmayer. Every interval results in a shorter gap between whistles, which forces the players to move more quickly. During the exercise, players also have blood drawn from their ears to check their lactate acid levels.
Milner typically prevails in this challenge.
But with the veteran gone, the team will be able to celebrate a new champion this summer.

Liverpool then fly out to Germany for a pre-season training camp that will see the work turned up several notches. In a change in traditional scheduling, Klopp has taken the decision to visit a European-based camp before the more commercially-driven jaunt to Singapore, which is more lucrative but a less taxing exertion from the players’ perspective on the training pitches.

Last year, players like Diogo Jota, Ibrahima Konate, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Thiago Alcantara, and Naby Keita all suffered early-season injuries. Klopp is determined to reduce the likelihood of a repeat, so his players will engage in taxing double sessions in the Black Forest in mid-July before the lengthy flight to the Far East. All of this is done to help the team as a whole develop a solid base of fitness as they work to fully recover next season.

As the ECHO revealed last month, the Reds will play two friendlies in Germany against Karlsruher and Greuther Furth. It has now been determined that those dates are July 19 and 24, with the second game taking place behind closed doors. Before the Reds return to Merseyside, Liverpool will play two more friendlies in Singapore on July 30 and August 2 against Leicester City and Bayern Munich, both at the National Stadium.

Klopp is keen to have one final local-based friendly before the curtain is raised on the 23/24 term but Liverpool have made a request to the Premier League to play their first game of the new campaign away from home while the finishing touches are placed on the Anfield Road end.

The ECHO understands a friendly at Preston North End’s Deepdale stadium is under consideration as a result as Liverpool look to end a busy summer with one final exhibition match. Following that, Klopp and his team will have to start working very hard. The Reds will find out if they will play an away game on June 15 when the Premier League schedule is made public.

Prior to that, though, Liverpool still have a lot to accomplish both on and off the field as a crucial summer for many departments continues.