Liverpool concluded their pre-season with a 2-0 victory over Como on Sunday. Cody Gakpo and Jérémy Jacquet were both on target during the first half at Anfield.
Andoni Iraola is now rapidly approaching the final countdown, with less than a week remaining before his newly inherited squad undergoes its first major test.
The seriousness of the impending Premier League campaign will truly set in when the head coach leads his side out at St James' Park next Sunday to lock horns with Newcastle United.
After the match, centre-back Virgil van Dijk spoke to assembled journalists in the mixed zone and, as always, gave an honest assessment of both the match but also broader and more important issues too.
It was put to the 35 year old that it is pretty guaranteed that, whoever it is, he'll be alongside a new centre-back partner against Newcastle next weekend, after both Jérémy Jacquet and Ronald Araújo made their first appearances for the club against Como, having this to say:
"I think he [Jacquet] did well, same as Ronald. It'ss a good start. Hopefully he can crack on. He came out of a bit tired but that's obviously absolutely normal when it's first 45 minutes after such a long time, now it's down to him to recover. We'll be back on the pitch tomorrow morning towards Newcastle at St James Park - always a tough one.""
Jacquet was making his first appearance of pre-season, after requiring shoulder surgery back in February, thereby eased back into action by Iraola. The Frenchman was replaced by fellow new recruit Ronald Araújo at half time, meaning van Dijk enjoyed 45 minutes alongside both. This is what the captain said when asked about the best way to build new relationships with new team mates:
"Playing game. That's not the only way but games are totally different to training. Jérémy English, I would say, is a bit better than Ronalds. At the end of the day we're really good footballers. We can see and smell moments on how to defend certain situations, but it's pretty clear that you need to form a connection together. It'll take a bit of time but that, in my opinion, is absolutely normal, hopefully we can get that going as quickly as possible. "
With Joe Gomez out, having picked up an injury against Sunderland in Tennessee, and Giovanni Leoni not yet fit enough to return, it'll be fascinating to see what Iraola's back four looks like on Tyneside next weekend.
Meantime, one of the themes of the Reds' pre-season has been intensity; the buzzword of the summer. Supporters and players alike, directly or otherwise, were criticising Arne Slot and his training methods for a lack of vehemence, surely one of the reasons Iraola was appointed. Well, van Dijk is enjoying the change of approach, but urges supporters to be patient:
"What I see is that no team in world football can play at full intensity for 90 minutes. So what you have to do, obviously at certain moments well all going to be a bit tired so it is down to us to make sure we are compact until we find the right moment to press again. I think we did that. Everyone is eager to go and to press and to keep the intensity up. It's a team game and we need everybody in order to do that. "
"It goes in phases during the game, but if you do that at the right time and the right moment, you don't need to run as much. So that means at time when there is a throw-in or a free-kick, we maybe have to play a little bit quicker to keep the ball even longer. It's a process. We're working on that. Today there was defiantly an improvement on that in my opinion. Obviously when you play the previous two games and you are 2-0 up, that is something you can't have happening again. I'm glad we could do better in that sense"
Iraola is looking to take Liverpool back to the heavy metal fan Kopites enjoyed so much during the early Jürgen Klopp-era, but this won't happen instantaneously, something van Dijk recognises. Given how new Newcastle United boss Matthias Jaissle likes his teams to play, alongside the fervent atmosphere the St James' Park faithful always generate, expect Sunday's clash to be high-energy from the off.
Whether or not Liverpool are ready to play that way at Premier League level, only time will tell.
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