Sitting in 34 degree heat in Obzor, Bulgaria, sipping a beer on the beach, with my eight year old son in the ocean, it is hard to predict what time we might eat tonight never mind what the forthcoming season holds for our beloved Reds. It is almost impossible to be anything but wrong in making predictions at this time - pre season form - injuries, much needed squad additions - v - wanted (or in some cases definitely not wanted departures), lack of board backing the manager (personal beef!) what others do plus the hardness of cup draws and yet - here I go. Do you worst and tell me how wrong I am!
I fear that we won't improve our league position position wise without a centre half who is dominant and, more important, fit for more than 75 % percent of the time. We all know who we think this without and any alternative names we urgently need to land VvD and quickly. Reason I say this is that Klavan (behind Lucas for the last third of the season) has actually moved up the packing order without getting better! As much as we need to add to midfield too, we need to keep Can (and hope he keeps his form of January onwards) and without doubt tell Phil he is staying. No debate, no discussion.
I think we will score a lot of goals through pace and guile away from home - and Bobby really is the fulcrum to making this work. At home the perennial challenge is that we need to be smarter in overcoming the deep sitting, bus parkers and as such I would want TAA and a left footed left back to be more effective with making real chances given the amount of ball their positions get every game. 
Salah looks excellent business, Solanke will play more than Origi and a fit Hendo will help with focus and direction. The manager will be under a bit more scrutiny this year (as always happens) and his juggling with the CL will be interesting to watch. I back him to succeedd overall and predict a 4th in the PL - but achieved a little earlier than last year with the caveats I've mentioned.
Stating the obvious - but getting through into the CL proper will be a challenge against Hoffenheim but looking at them, whilst a decent team ,I feel their best squad member is their manager - 30 year old, Julian Nagelsmann. Already called mini-Mourinho, his team will provide a stern challenge but back at Anfield, I would hope that Klopp's know - how and experience would see us through.
Assuming this, we have six games in the group stage to both reacclimatise ourselves as a club and show what we are about - things we failed to do under Brendan. With a fair wind, a good draw and scoring enough goals I'll predict us a last sixteen place.
Domestic cups should be something we target strongly and with a desire to win at least one of them irrespective of other games and volume. We used to win things and we have stopped doing this - even poor Arsenal and United teams have managed this recently. The winning habit is actually built on winning things and the manager needs this too. So I predict a League Cup win - for younger readers, ask you dads - this used to belong to us!
Overall I see a few challenges, the majority of which we should overcome but dependent of personnel and luck - plus ca change as we say in Birkenhead! Now for a swim.
Predictions:
PL - 4th
CL - Last sixteen
FA Cup - Quarter Finals
League Cup - Winners