Arne Slot following Jurgen Klopp's eight-year-old plan with two Liverpool transfers

Naby Keita's Liverpool career was a curious one.

Study any list of 'worst Liverpool transfers' or 'Anfield flops' and you'll probably find him in there, and the fact that he's the club's fifth most expensive signing ever means that that is fair enough, to a degree.

Keita wasn't terrible though, and he'd often be at the scene of some of the Reds' finest triumphs under Jurgen Klopp when he was fit.

Those fitness issues were the main reason why he is viewed the way he is now of course, but there is also something else that has to be taken into account when you consider the Guinean's Reds career: He didn't join the team he signed for.

To much fanfare, Keita agreed his switch to Merseyside from RB Leipzig in the summer of 2017, but much to the annoyance of Reds fans he wouldn't link up with his new club for another year.

And it was in that year that a young right-back from West Derby and a bargain basement buy from Hull City, via Queen's Park and Dundee United, would completely change the way Liverpool played.

Suddenly a midfielder with Keita's talents, a player who had been seen to be a natural replacement for Philippe Coutinho, was going to be asked to hustle and harry and put in the hard work seen from the like of Jordan Henderson, James Milner, Gini Wijnaldum and Fabinho, who also arrived in that summer of 2018.

This was because the midfield needed to be solidified to compensate for Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson flying forward, as they had just done over the past year as the Reds reached the Champions League final.

The full-backs completely changed the way that the Reds played under Klopp in what had been the German's second full season. And now Arne Slot's second campaign could go the same way.

In Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez the Reds are adding express pace to their flanks from full-back positions, and while the impact on the team might not be as stark as it was when Alexander-Arnold - the younger version who was more rangy running than range of passes - and Robertson came in, it still promises to be vast.

Slot has developed something of an obsession with Paris Saint-Germain ever since they knocked the Reds out of the Champions League in March and it was telling to see him compare Conor Bradley with Achraf Hakimi when discussing the Northern Irishman's qualities recently.

In Hakimi and Nuno Mendes PSG possess arguably the two finest attacking, pure full-backs in the game today, and the way they get up to support attacks and then back to defend really is a sight to behold.

Robertson is still capable of doing that on and off for Liverpool despite his advancing years, and with him alternating with Kerkez on the left and Bradley sharing the right-hand duties with Frimpong then Liverpool are going to have some serious outlets out wide.

It isn't quite the vast change in style that Klopp brought in in the summer of 2017, but with the creative talents of Alexander-Arnold removed it is going to be fascinating to see how the new Liverpool evolve, and how those players already at the club adjust.

The hope will be that young, hungry players like Frimpong and Kerkez always retain the energy to keep on going, just like that PSG duo, and they'll be ably backed up by athletic players in midfield like Ryan Gravenberch, Dominik Szoboszlai, Curtis Jones and Alexis Mac Allister, upon whom there might be a bigger creative burden next season.

Slot has always been tipped to evolve his style of play regardless of this season's successes, and it seems like he might just be borrowing a leaf from Klopp's book in his first real summer of change.

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