Just how much weight should be placed on pre-season form? The honest answer is that it depends entirely on who you ask.
Supporters starved of football over the summer are desperate to see new faces bed in and to sense some momentum gathering before the season proper begins.
At Anfield, though, that sense of anticipation has been jolted by events both on and off the pitch.
There is no neat formula for judging pre-season results. Look back twelve months, when Arsenal lost to Thomas Frank's Tottenham in Hong Kong and were beaten at home by Villarreal in their second-to-last warm-up game.
Nine months on, Frank had lost his job while Arsenal lifted the Premier League title and came within a penalty shoot-out of Champions League glory.
By that reasoning, Liverpool's consecutive two-goal collapses against Leeds and Monaco could simply be shrugged off. There is genuine encouragement for Andoni Iraola too, with Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak - both of whom found their first Merseyside campaigns difficult - looking sharp this summer. The pair were both on target in Sunday's game against Monaco.
But a bigger picture is forming, and the concerns are significant enough that the new head coach felt compelled to address them publicly with fewer than two weeks remaining before the opening fixture against Newcastle, shown live on Sky Sports on August 23.
Those repeated collapses have exposed one of Liverpool's biggest current worries - conditioning.
No Premier League club completed more sprints last season than Iraola's Bournemouth, and the demanding, high-intensity pressing game he wants is now well known across the division.
Those demands may be felt even more acutely by a Liverpool squad that ranked third-fewest for pressures and second-fewest for high pressures in the opposition half last season.
Granted, this is a club long accustomed to pressing under Jurgen Klopp, with several of his former players still on the books. Yet reversing course from his successor Arne Slot's approach is proving a considerable task to unpick, both mentally and, crucially, physically, with the season now bearing down fast.
Following the Monaco game, Iraola offered a blunt assessment that his players might currently be able to sustain his approach for only around half an hour at a stretch.
We played well in the first half, especially the first 30 minutes, but right now probably we don't have much more in terms of the level required to play like this.
That comment spoke volumes about his players' current match sharpness. Elsewhere, Liverpool's rivals are increasingly favouring continuity over wholesale changes, with Manchester City, Arsenal and Aston Villa - all fellow Champions League participants - each fielding five or more outfield starters for at least 75 minutes in last weekend's friendlies. By contrast, only three Liverpool players even reached the hour mark.
Even Newcastle, Liverpool's opening-day opponents, gave six players 67 minutes or more against Valencia on Saturday, despite having to withdraw Jacob Murphy early through injury.
Much of Liverpool's starting eleven on Sunday would realistically be able to line up at St James' Park come the opener, and it was that group who surged into a 2-0 lead against Monaco, offering flashes of the identity Iraola is trying to instil.
Yet as Liverpool work to close the fitness gap on their competitors, squad depth becomes an even more pressing issue - and here, too, the head coach faces mounting difficulties.
Chelsea were able to call upon Nicolas Jackson, Geovany Quenda and Estevao off the bench to beat AC Milan 3-0 on Saturday. A day later, Liverpool were reduced to a centre-back partnership of Wataru Endo and Luke Chambers - who spent last season on loan at Charlton - for much of the second half against Monaco.
Setting aside Victor Munoz and Milos Kerkez, both likely to start against Newcastle, the eight substitutes Liverpool introduced managed a combined total of just eight top-flight starts last season, five of which belonged to 17-year-old Rio Ngumoha alone.
Milos Kerkez has previously detailed the sheer intensity of Iraola's training methods, describing a regime so demanding that players have been left lying on the floor afterwards - a telling insight given how quickly fatigue has shown up in these friendlies.
Iraola is under no illusions about the thinness of his squad, and within weeks of taking charge he was already pressing the club publicly for further additions. That call has not yet produced the response he was hoping for.
He would surely have preferred to avoid last month's departure of Michael Edwards, along with the ongoing speculation surrounding Richard Hughes' future, though neither will count for much as an excuse should the campaign begin poorly.
The unexpected arrival of Ronald Araujo softens the blow somewhat, though even with him in the building, Liverpool are still working with only two fit senior centre-backs. Conor Bradley, according to Iraola, remains
