With the 2016/17 Premier League season less than a week away premierleague.com looks at each of the 20 clubs.
Liverpool
Jurgen Klopp will be hoping his side can challenge for a maiden Premier League title in his first full season in charge at Anfield in 2016/17, starting with the tough trip to Arsenal on 14 August.
Highest finishing position
Liverpool have finished runners-up on three occasions, 2001/02, 2008/09 and 2013/14, while have never ended a PL season lower than eighth.
Signings
Six players have joined the club this summer, with Liverpool bolstering their ranks in key areas of the pitch.
Loris Karius and Alex Manninger, formerly of Arsenal, will provide competition for Simon Mignolet in goal, while Joel Matip and Ragnar Klavan have been added to the defence.
Georginio Wijnaldum and Sadio Mane bolster the midfield. Marko Grujic could also feature in midfield after returning from a loan at Red Star Belgrade, having joined Liverpool in the winter.
Expected formation
Liverpool largely deployed a 4-2-3-1 last season, with a number of attacking midfielders roaming behind a lone striker, a position that Daniel Sturridge could start in having missed most of 2015/16 through injury.
Klopp also played with a false nine last season, a system whose best showing came in the 4-1 victory at Manchester City with Roberto Firmino the foil. A strength in depth will allow Klopp to have flexibility in 2016/17, something the manager alluded recently talking about pre-season.
“We need to use these two weeks to bring all this together and then find a formation for the first game, then find one for the second game,” Klopp said.
Managers
Liverpool have had eight managers in the PL era: Graeme Souness, Roy Evans, Gerard Houllier, Rafael Benitez, Roy Hodgson, Kenny Dalglish, Brendan Rodgers and Klopp.
Having been appointed in October of last year, Klopp’s current PL record is 13 wins in 30 matches, with eight defeats and nine draws.
After succeeding Rodgers in the early on last season, Klopp’s Reds went on to create more goalscoring chances than any other team in the top flight.
Last season
Liverpool missed out on European qualification last season, finishing eighth, their joint-lowest in the PL era alongside the 1993/94 and 2011/12 campaigns.
They reached the finals of both the League Cup and the UEFA Europa League in a promising start to life under Klopp.
Pre-season form
A busy pre-season schedule has reaped five victories in eight matches, including four successive wins scoring 10 goals without conceding in July.
Narrow defeats by Chelsea and Roma sandwiched a 2-0 triumph over AC Milan but they impressed in a 4-0 win on Saturday over Barcelona. However, this was followed less than 24 hours later by a defeat by Mainz, to the same score, but with only two of the same starters from the Barcelona match.
Significant injuries
Alberto Moreno suffered a “dead leg in the hamstring”, according to Klopp, against Roma last week but the knock isn’t believed to be serious and the Spaniard came on against Barcelona.
Karius will miss the start of the season after having an operation on a broken hand, with Lucas Leiva also set for a brief spell on the sidelines with a hamstring issue.
Young defender Joe Gomez has seen his comeback from a long-term knee injury slowed by an Achilles problem, while a similar issue for Mamadou Sakho means he is racing to be fit before the end of August.
James Milner, who was playing left-back, also withdrew early in the win over Barcelona with a heel injury that Klopp admitted “doesn’t look too good”.
Perhaps the biggest blow is the potential loss of Daniel Sturridge for the opening weekend of the Premier League; the striker missed Liverpool's final two pre-season matches with a hip issue and is facing a race to prove his fitness for the weekend.
What the manager says
“You can be sure we will fight for everything and we need to be ready for everything. We have a year without European football so we know [what] we're working for. We have, if you want, pressure, but it's more that we're really ambitious and we want to win as many games as possible.”
Did you know?
Liverpool scored 15 goals from outside the box last season, the most in the PL.
Arsenal v Liverpool: Pre-match statistics and head-to-head record
