that said, something's awfully wrong when you have Rooney commanding that high a salary (something like $8M USD/year?) when you have others barely scraping six-figures.
Compare and contrast the following (easy to do, as both mainly play as 4-3-3)
Attack: 3 from the group of Aguero, Sterling, Jesus, Sane, Silva (POR), and Mahrez vs
3 from the group of Sturridge, Firminho, Mane, Salah, Shaqiri, and Lallana
Midfield: 3 from the group of KdB, Silva (ESP), Gundogan, Fernandinho, Foden vs
3 from the group of Keita, Fabinho, Milner, Henderson, Wijnaldum
Defense: 4 from the group of Delph, Mendy, Otamendi, Stones, Laporte, Kompany, Walker, and Danilo vs
4 from the group of Robertson, Moreno, van Dijk, Lovren, Matip, Klavan, TAA, and Clyne
In any cup tie between the teams, I'd take the Scousers over MC (little known fact, Klopp is the only coach with a winning record against Guardiola). Over a season, however, MC has more depth overall at least for now, with maybe slightly more depth for LFC for midfield. I'd actually take LFC's first choice defense over that of MC, but other than Clyne, they are really thin.
As for x-factor, Klopp has shown to be astute in identifying and incubating talent. We all smirked when they paid for the underwhelimg Ox; no one was laughing at the end of the season. One of their starting outside backs played on a relegated Hull team; the other an academy product who wasn't able to buy a beer at the start of 2017-2018, but few would trade the pair for any other Premier League pairing now. So who knows, perhaps they'll have fringe players step up to boost depth.
Regardless, would love to see them do well.
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On another note, not sure if it's good or bad that Champion's League coverage is now on Turner Sport. For all their bloviating commentators, Fox at least showed most of the games from group stage onward...