IAN HERBERT: If Jurgen Klopp cannot accept that age is the flaw at the core of his team, then it's OVER. He appears so committed to the players who have taken Liverpool to their heights that he can't let them go

It was a book by Jurgen Klopp’s assistant Pep Lijnders, published last August, which made you wonder if Liverpool were perhaps getting a little too caught up in their own publicity.

The breathless publication, entitled Intensity, was the inside story of the club’s success, and it would certainly have had the old Boot Room boys — Bob Paisley, Ronnie Moran and Joe Fagan —spinning in their graves.

The whole point of that legendary, windowless room, with its upturned beer crates for seats, was that Liverpool’s coaches lured opposition managers in at 5pm on a Saturday and flattered them into offering up their secrets — while revealing none of their own.