Jurgen Klopp's next Liverpool teamtalk is already written with two rival teams to mention

Of all the low points of Liverpool's Premier League season last time out, the humbling at Brighton in January could very well have been the nadir.

While the Reds were caught cold after starting poorly or found wanting in the face of more physical battles in defeats to the likes of Wolves and Brentford, the manner of their 3-0 smiting at the hands of the Seagulls really sticks out for how much they were outclassed on the day.

Everyone will have their own opinion on when Liverpool officially reached the end of the 2018-2022 era but the abject manner of their collapse at the Amex Stadium at the turn of the year is as good a place as any to suggest it. Or at least, perhaps it was the moment Klopp finally realised it.

Ten months on, Liverpool will return to the south coast in a much more buoyant mood having taken 16 points from their opening eight games. There's a freshness and an energy around both the club and the squad that wasn't there last season and, more than anyone, Klopp looks reinvigorated by it all.

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And if many were seeking clues as to how serious this new-look Liverpool really is at Tottenham last week, the manner of their cruel and controversial defeat only enhanced the belief that this is once more 'a proper team', to coin a Klopp-ism.

Liverpool's 19-game and six-month long unbeaten run might finally have bitten the dust in north London last weekend but the resolute manner in which the 10 and then the nine men faced up the challenge of an emerging Spurs side in their own backyard, only to be undone by a 96th-minute own goal and the most egregious of VAR