Jurgen Klopp needs to a deliver a trophy at Liverpool or he could find his position under threat, John Toshack has warned.
The Reds moved to appoint a proven winner back in October 2015 after taking the decision to part with Brendan Rodgers.
Klopp has provided plenty of entertainment during his time on Merseyside, but the wait for major silverware has stretched into a sixth year.
Ending that barren run is considered a must for the man currently at the helm, with Reds legend Toshack of the opinion that silverware droughts and leaky defences will not be tolerated for much longer.
A man who spent eight years at Anfield during his playing days told Goal: “I think at Liverpool it’s about winning trophies.
“He [Klopp] seems a bright, happy-go-lucky type who obviously was successful at the last club he was in, in Germany but I’m not sure that… I think this year, or by the end of next season, you need to see some kind of trophies there. If not, particularly, the way football is these days, I think they’ll be looking to change again.
“I think this is a big season for Klopp. When the time comes, middle of May, end of May, will be time to sit back and look.
“Defensively, the Liverpool I knew, or the Liverpool we became to know over the years, win championships conceding 15 or 16 goals. Liverpool concede far too many goals. However bright and attacking your football is, if you need to score three or four to win a game every week, it’s going to become very, very difficult.
“They’ve shipped in too many goals recently and I guess even a fourth place finish this year would be, I think, as much as Liverpool can hope for.”
Liverpool’s cause has not been aided by the departure of Philippe Coutinho in a €160 million deal with Barcelona, and Toshack concedes that big-spending rivals are making life increasingly difficult for the Reds.
The former Wales international added: “I listened to Klopp and I think Klopp was right when he says, it’s very difficult once you’re with players, they get it into their heads, they want to move and they got an opportunity to move. There are now agents, representing players all over the places, it is very difficult.
Getty Images“We’ve seen that with Arsenal recently, Alexis Sanchez and with maybe [Mesut] Ozil as well.
“In our day, we didn’t feel we could benefit by moving from Liverpool. We couldn’t see anywhere where we could go, where we would be better off than Liverpool.
“But now of course, the big European clubs with the money, it’s very difficult for the second-tier teams to keep their best players. Tottenham have been doing very well recently but they will have a problem keeping these couple of top players - Harry Kane and Dele Alli.
“Once these players feel there’s a big chance of going to one of the big ones abroad, maybe Paris Saint-Germain, or Real Madrid or Barcelona, it becomes very difficult.
“As I mentioned earlier, I think Klopp spoke very well: ‘Look, we tried to keep Coutinho, but you can’t strangle him and say you’ve got to stay and you have to play here’ and I think he has handled it well.
“Coutinho has played decent matches for Liverpool up until this particular time and then he’s left. He shook hands and said ‘Good luck, off you go’ and that’s it. There’s so much power now in the players that it becomes very difficult to keep an unhappy player. It spreads dissent in the dressing room, a very complicated business now. Much more difficult than it was.”