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Paris may be this Liverpool team’s final fling. Nothing lasts for ever

MARTIN SAMUEL CHIEF SPORTS WRITER

WHen liverpool walk out in Paris tomorrow night, it could be for the last time. not just the last match of an exhausting, brilliant season — but their last match as the liverpool we recognise. The first Premier league champions under Jurgen Klopp, the serial Champions league finalists, conquerors of Barcelona against all odds, the three-pronged attack that terrified all of europe.

nothing is for ever in football. Gerard Houllier said that, looking around an empty Old Trafford after another liverpool defeat. Back then, it seemed unimaginable that such a club could ever go without the title for nine years, and counting, in the modern era. But it has happened.

liverpool took 30 years before this team ended their run of disappointments. But in the coming seasons, they will need to rebuild and, as Klopp has it, go again. The next match liverpool play after this they could be without sadio Mane, who says he will make his mind up on his future after the final. Mo salah

has said he will play another year, but gives no guarantees about signing a new contract, meaning next summer he could be gone, too.

We like to imagine dynasties, we can never see a favourite being defeated. Yet the task of replacing Sir Alex Ferguson has shattered the supremacy of Manchester United, the way Arsenal have never recaptured the team who were tagged Invincible.

It feels that way with Manchester City and Liverpool, too, as if the rest of the league will never catch up. But Erling Haaland has a release clause in his contract; Pep Guardiola has not committed beyond 2023.

So much can change. Others can catch up, and they will, just as it once appeared as if Chelsea would dominate for decades. How or when, we do not know. But replacing Mane, and maybe Salah, is the start of transition at Liverpool.

Luis Diaz looks a brilliant player, Diogo Jota has impressed, too. Yet Mane, Salah and Roberto Firmino clicked in a way few forward lines ever can. They were exceptional. It is not just a case of taking out one good player, and putting in another. There must be chemistry, too.

This is not to be pessimistic about Liverpool’s future. Klopp is a brilliant coach, and committed, the recruitment department is close to unmatched.

Even so, tomorrow in Paris may yet be a swansong. And if it is, it has been a pleasure. But change is inevitable; so we should all make the most of this.

● IT IS very easy to pump £150million into a football club on paper; and certainly on newspaper. The club leaks what the manager has to spend, and journalists put it in big headlines. The proof, as ever, is in the spending. Arsenal always had grandiose budgets under Arsene Wenger, as far as the media was concerned. When they didn’t spend it, we were told this was Wenger’s way, he treated the money as if it was his own. Wenger, a loyal company man, never called them out until he was steered into retirement when he could admit that, no, he never had the budget implied by his employers. Once Arsenal built their new stadium, his hands were tied. So, has Antonio Conte got £150m to spend at Tottenham? We shall see. And we’ll know soon enough because Tottenham could certainly do with £150m’s worth of improvements if they are to take advantage of transition and uncertainty elsewhere. A manager like Conte is worth that investment because he wins trophies and Tottenham do not. So this certainly should be his transfer kitty; but that’s not the same as getting it.

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2022-05-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

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