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Not quite a crisis, but a drama Jurgen Klopp could well do without.

The nagging doubts that emerged during the US tour have become full-blown concerns after Liverpool suffered an embarrassing latest pre-season setback.

It wasn't just that the Reds were beaten 3-0 by Napoli in front of a largely shellshocked 65,442 crowd inside Murrayfield on Sunday.

The manner of the defeat will be of greater worry to Klopp with the Community Shield against Manchester City less than a week away.

Once again, Liverpool were poor defensively and disorganised in midfield – the pressing game individual rather than collective, the formation flimsy rather than focused – failings this time exacerbated by a lack of cutting edge.

For the fourth game in a row, Liverpool conceded first. In the 17th minute, Divock Origi lost possession and, with several Reds' players out of position, Napoli broke down the right before Lorenzo Insigne curled a fine finish into the bottom corner from 20 yards.

Twelve minutes later it was Trent Alexander-Arnold who gifted the Serie A side the ball, this time Insigne crossing for Arek Milik to slide in at the near post.

And on 52 minutes, yet another diagonal down the right flank sent Napoli away. Insigne's shot was parried out by Simon Mignolet, hit a Napoli shirt and Amin Younes rolled the rebound into the empty net.

The big guns return

The cavalry cannot arrive soon enough.

Alisson Becker, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah will all link up with the squad for the week-long training camp in Evian, which starts on Monday.

Naby Keita and Xherdan Shaqiri will also travel having returned to training after injury, leaving only Sadio Mane, back the following Monday, to come back.

The summer thus far has underlined, should it really have been necessary, why each is so important.

Particularly up front, where Liverpool looked completely bereft against a Napoli side they had smashed five past in a friendly in Dublin barely 12 months earlier.

Of course, that the teams then traded tense 1-0 home wins in the Champions League group stage highlights why pre-season results can be somewhat misleading.

But Liverpool's lack of firepower was troubling and will pose further questions over the strength in depth available up top with Origi toiling and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, despite steps forward in the US, some way from being ready for regular first-team football.

The introduction of several youngsters towards the end of the game at least added an injection of pace and energy, but it took until the 90th minute before Napoli goalkeeper Alex Meret was forced into a meaningful save when turning around Harry Wilson's drive.

Just one of Firmino, Salah or Mane will make a huge difference. And they are most certainly needed when Liverpool complete their pre-season programme against French side Lyon in Geneva on Wednesday.

Reds need a hangover cure

Among the comments Klopp has made during pre-season, there's one that perhaps hinted at a possible reason for Liverpool's lethargic warm-up programme.

“Nobody should talk to me too often about the Champions League trophy,” he said after Wednesday's 2-2 draw with Sporting Lisbon in New York.

“That's now finished, I hope we don't carry it with us all the time still so that we can start writing a new book or chapter.”

With Jamie Webster performing 'Allez Allez Allez' on the roof of Murrayfield's South Stand, it remained impossible here to escape the glory that was Madrid.

But there has been a danger the friendlies thus far have been akin to a extended celebration for Liverpool fans – and the players, human as they are, may have been affected by that. The games seem more post-season than pre-season in many ways.

Last season took an awful lot out Klopp's squad, the latest finish in Liverpool's history. And there is evidently some sort of hangover.

Klopp knows they have to snap out of it. Evian and a week on the training pitch – Liverpool not returning until Saturday afternoon – represents an opportunity to get away from it all and get down to some hard graft.

The signings question

The enthusiastic welcome for both Sepp van den Berg and, most notably, Harvey Elliott showed Liverpool fans love a new face.

But other than the two teenagers, there continues to be precious little sign of movement in the transfer window from Klopp.

The pros and cons have been debated for much of the summer., and it's unlikely, barring a major injury, there will be any shift in the Reds' approach ahead of August 8.

This was Van den Berg's first real taste of first-team football but it was Elliott who caught the eye, drawing purrs of appreciation from the crowd with a few jinking runs and one long-range shot.

Certainly, the 16-year-old is not lacking in confidence.

What he isn't, though, is an immediate option for the first team.

And if Elliott proves the final incoming this summer, the trust in Klopp from a section of Liverpool fans faces its first real test in some time.