Stan Collymore is a bit of an acquired taste as a pundit, but one thing that you can always guarantee from the former Liverpool striker is that he shoots from the lip.
He won’t hold back if he’s passionate about a subject, regardless whether that loses him more friends than it earns him.
Honesty is clearly the best policy where he is concerned, which unfortunately does tend to alienate some people.
However, his message to Liverpool supporters is spot on.
“Kop fans must be very concerned that Liverpool have made no big-name signings this summer,” he said in his column for the Daily Mirror.
“Where are the players whose arrivals would make the dressing-room sit up and think: ‘We’d better push ourselves even more this season because the gaffer is getting serious’?
“Even with reinforcements it would be very difficult for the Reds to match last season’s form; without them it would be almost impossible.
“Don’t get me wrong, we know the title-winners have an excellent mentality, so of course they will be competitive once again. Under boss Jurgen Klopp, that’s practically a given.
“But history tells us that players need pushing most when they have just won something and Liverpool’s squad will be no different.”
After playing so well over the last two seasons, the difficulty for Jurgen Klopp is to extract that level from his players over the next nine months.
Having won the Premier League at a canter in 2019/20 after coming so close the season before, there could very well be a sense at Anfield already of a job well done.
Getting to the summit has taken the Reds three decades, but it’s how long they can stay there for that will ultimately decide how Klopp and his group of players will be judged in the history books.