Last season was an absolutely magnificent one for everyone involved with Liverpool Football Club, with the Reds making enormous strides under Jurgen Klopp.
They managed to accumulate a points haul of 97 in the Premier League that saw them come agonisingly close to delivering their first title, missing out to Manchester City by the tightest of margins. But they managed to recover in emphatic style by delivering their sixth Champions League title.
No English side has won more European cups than the Reds, with only AC Milan (7) and Real Madrid (13) lifting it on more occasions which is some achievement.
Their 2-0 win over Premier League rivals Tottenham at the Wanda Metropolitano, Madrid, has put them back on the map as one of the games most dominant forces, meaning they'll be a very difficult proposition to turn down for any player.
It's been a long wait for Liverpool fans to return to the pinnacle of European football with their last success coming in 2005 and it looks like they're in much better shape to build on this success as they go again in the seasons to come.
The job that Klopp has done since replacing Brendan Rodgers back in 2015 is absolutely incredible and now he's finally removed that burden of winning his first trophy, all the foundations are in place for them to really push on and write even more history.
He's built a superb side which is the envy of many sides around the continent and despite making some very modest purchases in the form of Joel Matip (free) and Andy Robertson (£8m), he has had to spend some big money to make them kings of Europe.
When spending huge transfer fees there's added pressure on them to succeed and it's hard to think of many (if any) Klopp signings that have flopped, in fact many of them have turned out to be bargains. The ones who instantly come to mind are of course the two previous mentioned along with Sadio Mane (£32m), Mohamed Salah (£35m) and without a doubt club record signing & PFA Player of the Year, Virgil van Dijk (£75m).
Klopp was once quoted back in 2016 on the back of Manchester United's £93.25m signing of Paul Pogba claiming that "Other clubs can go out and spend money and collect top players. I want to do it differently. I would even do it differently if I could spend that money."
Well the additions of van Dijk, Alisson Becker (£65m) and Naby Keita (£56m) in 2018 prove that it's very difficult to avoid shelling out massive fees if you want to compete with the best in Europe and it appears that Klopp has accepted that. In a recent interview with German broadcaster ZDF he expanded on his Pogba comments, saying "Back when I was in Germany, Bayern had a bottomless pit of money, like £100m.
"In today's market, that gets you one centre-back. So this bottomless pit of money is enough to buy one player in today's world and that doesn't even cover their wages. The market has changed more than I expected, but I stand by what I said.
Klopp once said that if the game changed and became all about money - which sadly it appears it is drifting towards - then he would walk away from it. His thoughts on that haven't changed.
"Maybe things were lost in translation but my point was, if we reach a point where football is solely about money and not football, then I'm leaving; and I still feel the same way about it."
It's not good hearing that, but Liverpool will be delighted to hear what he said next. The Reds are absolutely over the moon with their manager, his team and the players he's brought in. This summer is very much a case of quality over quantity in terms of transfers and it appears that he's going to be active in the market:
"Liverpool is an ambitious club and if we didn't spend the same amount of money as others, we wouldn't be able to compete. Everybody's splashing the cash, so we have to do the same."
