Liverpool is about to unleash a 17-goal weapon that Jurgen Klopp only had time to use six times the previous season.

As he gets ready for the upcoming Premier League season, Jurgen Klopp is likely to be given a challenging situation this preseason.

This weekend, as preparations for the 2023–24 season got underway, Liverpool’s stars started to pour through the AXA Training Center’s doors. The countdown for August 13 began.

Naturally, the Reds’ Premier League campaign will get underway then with a trip to Stamford Bridge to take on a freshly revamped Mauricio Pochettino-coached Chelsea squad.

Before departing for Singapore to play Leicester City and Bayern Munich at the end of July, Liverpool will travel to Germany’s Black Forest and the depths of Europe for a grueling training camp. This will be their first away day of the season.

After last time out’s season of overall and individual decline at Anfield, Klopp will have plenty to think about as he attempts to plot his first-choice starting XI for the five friendlies penciled in the calendar over the next five weeks. It occurs as Liverpool aims to win the Champions League again after finishing fifth in the Premier League.

The simultaneous availability of Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota, Darwin Nunez, Cody Gakpo, and Mohamed Salah is expected to help Klopp’s efforts to negotiate a return to the top table of European football.

The five players have only been available for six Premier League games together, which is perhaps not surprising given the severity of the injury crisis that decimated large portions of the squad last season. Liverpool scored 17 goals during that time, or in April 2023, averaging 20.8 goals per game.

The 6-1 thrashing of Leeds United at Elland Road from that stretch of games, which came in the middle of the Reds’ 11-game unbeaten streak at the end of the season, will serve as the highlight reel that will have whetted Klopp’s appetite going into the new season.

Across the Pennines on that particular night, Cody Gakpo completed a quick counterattack to give Liverpool the lead in the first half before Mohamed Salah scored a decisive goal four minutes later to double the lead.

After the break, Luis Sinisterra scored to cut the deficit in half, but Diogo Jota, who had been freed by an incredible Curtis Jones through-ball, scored to snap a one-year goal drought. Moments later, he and Salah helped themselves to their second of the game before substitute Darwin Nunez sealed a memorable evening for the away Kop with the Reds’ sixth goal in extra time.

Despite a flurry of goals in the second half, Luis Diaz’s return from a seven-month absence from the field received the loudest cheer of the evening from the roughly 3,000 Reds seated in the East Stand at Elland Road. After emerging as a glimmer of hope in the early weeks of the season, the Colombian’s protracted absence from the team left Liverpool lacking in inventiveness, skill, and attacking vigor as the goals dried up at Anfield at a time when Nunez and Gakpo were still acclimating to life in Merseyside.

With Liverpool vying for a top-four finish, Klopp said of Diaz in May, “Having Luis back for this particular run of games has been a massive help and you can see the impact that he has on his teammates and the opposition.”. “It is so beneficial to have him back in the team, doing what he does, because he gives us a different threat and brings a different profile to our attack.
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The Liverpool manager can come to expect a fully-fit and firing forward department in the upcoming season, as evidenced by a pulsating 4-3 victory over Tottenham Hotspur later in the month following the latest of late strikes courtesy of Jota.

Following his impressive adjustment to life at Anfield since his £37 million transfer from PSV Eindhoven in January, Gakpo currently holds a firm hold of the central position in Liverpool’s forward line. When Liverpool begins their season in West London in a little more than five weeks, Diaz and Salah will be expected to flank the Dutchman on the left and right sides.

However, Liverpool are actually well-stocked and ready for a successful campaign on Merseyside regardless of the lineup Klopp chooses for the 2023–24 season.