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The team sheet at Anfield on Saturday evening will provide a painful reminder of what might have been.

Alexis Sanchez could have been lining up for Liverpool but instead he will be leading the charge for Arsenal.

How different the past three years may have been had the gifted Chilean attacker not rejected the Reds’ advances back in June 2014. For a start, Mario Balotelli would never have pulled on a Liverpool shirt.

Sanchez would have been the perfect fit for Liverpool - the ideal replacement for Barcelona-bound Luis Suarez.

Barcelona were keen to do business with the Reds as the £32million fee for Sanchez could have been knocked off what they were paying for Suarez but the player had other ideas.

He and his girlfriend wanted the bright lights of London and Arsene Wenger won the race for his signature, despite Liverpool offering more than the Gunners in wages.

Liverpool haven’t signed a player of his calibre since and their lack of a dynamic, prolific marksman remains a burning issue. Sanchez has plundered 20 goals already this season - as many as Liverpool’s two top scorers, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino, put together.

Sanchez’s name sits alongside the likes of Diego Costa, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Willian in the list of targets the Reds missed out on during Brendan Rodgers’ reign.

The hope was that Jurgen Klopp’s pulling power would change all that.

But last summer Mario Gotze opted to return to Borussia Dortmund rather than sign for Liverpool when he left Bayern Munich.

Liverpool also failed to land Ousmane Dembele and Christian Pulisic.

Klopp spoke to German winger Julian Draxler about a potential move to Anfield but in January he made the switch from Wolfsburg to Paris Saint-Germain instead.

Of course Klopp has had a positive impact on the club’s recruitment with Sadio Mane, Joel Matip and Gini Wijnaldum all admitting that the chance to work with the two-time Bundesliga winner lured them to Merseyside.

But clearly there are other factors than Klopp at work: geography, Champions League football and money.

Liverpool can’t do anything about the first one and the second has certainly hurt them because players want to be competing at the highest level.

The Reds have only graced Europe’s elite once in the past seven seasons.

Whether they can dangle that carrot this summer will hinge on what happens in the remaining 12 league matches.

Beat Arsenal and the Reds’ top-four hopes will be rekindled. Lose and effectively the best they can achieve is a Europa League spot.

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What’s clear is that whether Liverpool reach the Champions League or not, this is a squad in need of some serious investment.

Since the turn of the year a lack of depth has been exposed - just look at the bench at Leicester on Monday night. Liverpool have paid a heavy price for failing to strengthen in January.

This squad isn’t as good as either Klopp or sporting director Michael Edwards thought it was.

Events of a dismal couple of months - coupled with the fifth anniversary of the club’s last trophy - have served to increase the scrutiny on Fenway Sports Group.

With Klopp having returned a profit on his transfer dealings over the past 17 months, the American owners have stood accused of not showing sufficient ambition.

Yet the manager remains adamant that he’s been backed every step of the way and that no deal he’s wanted to pursue has fallen through because of a lack of cash.

“If the club comes to me and says: ‘That is too expensive’, I have to accept it, but that didn’t happen until now and I don’t expect it to happen,” he said.

“We all want to make this club as successful as possible.”

Klopp will learn from the mistakes of this season. He knows he needs more depth, more proven quality rather than untapped potential, and he knows it will cost. All eyes will be on whether FSG deliver for him.