While no one anticipated Liverpool to fight for the Premier League title in a rebuilding season, having pulled themselves into contention moving into the closing months of the season, it’s been a disappointment to see their finishing fail them down.

More so given that this is Jürgen Klopp’s final season in charge and the position group was not overhauled last summer. Ex-Red John Aldridge observed that it’s not only one or two players, such as Darwin Nuñez, Mo Salah, Luis Diaz, or Cody Gakpo.

“It’s not just [Nuñez],” explained the Liverpool icon. “Mo, Diaz, Gakpo, and everyone else have missed opportunities and sitters. And this isn’t just one game. We have taken more shots than any other team in Europe. The statistics aren’t excellent.

“When you’re winning, you have strikers who score 20 or more league goals. We didn’t have that, and we squandered several opportunities. The players have put pressure on themselves. I’ve been there, and it isn’t good. “It has not been good.”

Despite this, Aldridge maintains that Liverpool’s late-season collapse does not make them a bad team. That, while the club isn’t as excellent as they were early in the season, they’re better than they appear right now. That there is a nice, potential roster in place.

As depressing as the end of the Klopp era may be, incoming manager Arne Slot will have much to work with. Given that the majority of the rebuilding was completed last summer, the team should now have a solid basis to build on.

“What’s happened in the past month, that doesn’t make us a bad team,” he said. “We have some pretty good players, particularly young players. Everything is in place except for the management team, which we do not yet know. They have to strive to take over comfortably.

“Obviously, there will be new players, but you don’t want to see too much change all at once because we have a really excellent team, a really good group. We’ve missed far too many opportunities, but they did well before that.”