Liverpool got there in the end.
Despite a lot of handicaps with regards to centre-backs, Liverpool qualified for the Champions League by finishing third in the Premier League.
It looked doubtful for a long time that the Reds would even qualify for Europe’s elite competition.
But five wins from a possible five in the month of May boosted their hopes in a big way.
If you told Liverpool fans before the season began that they’d be celebrating a top-four finish, the supporters, who watched their side lift a Premier League title a month earlier, would’ve been deflated.
But Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez being out since October, combined with Joel Matip not playing since January, forced the fanbase to re-adjust their expectations in the face of a horrendous injury crisis which saw Jurgen Klopp use some 20 different centre-back combinations during the campaign.
Klopp never replaced Dejan Lovren last summer after the Croatia international left for Zenit St Petersburg in a £10 million deal.
And the former Southampton powerhouse has admitted that he didn’t respond to the German’s text that he missed him during the season.
He told The Mirror: “We said goodbye to each other as friends. We said that whatever we needed, we could phone each other. It was a very good, open talk.
“Sometimes we still chat. Once he said that he was missing me in the team… but I didn’t reply!”
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