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Watching Liverpool’s young players being sent out on loan, sold and then gradually forgotten will, without doubt, be something the club’s Premier League rivals enjoy.

In Jurgen Klopp’s farewell campaign, he pushed Liverpool into one last Premier League title challenge, with the side finishing third behind Arsenal and Manchester City, and also won the Carabao Cup.

The final trophy he delivered to Anfield came through ‘Klopp’s Kids’ — a group of youngsters who stepped up with cameo appearances at Wembley and helped beat Chelsea — and it was unquestionably one of the German’s finest achievements as Liverpool manager.

Liverpool were a very different side then. Stefan Bajcetic bringing an end to a Reds career that was badly affected by injuries, but had once promised so much, is proof of that. And the road back to the top could be a long one.

Some may say, ‘But he was injured! That’s nobody’s fault.’ But what should hurt Liverpool supporters is not Bajcetic’s exit viewed in isolation, but what his departure ought to remind them of. It points to the sheer volume of developing talents who have been discarded, loaned out, sold and then forgotten since Klopp’s spell on Merseyside ended.

From future club captain Trent Alexander-Arnold opting for Real Madrid — and that coming after the Reds won their first Premier League title in front of supporters for 35 years, no less — to Harvey Elliot’s recent loan move to La Liga. After a difficult year at Aston Villa, the expression on the Englishman’s face while answering questions from the Valencia media was not easy viewing.

Young footballers once seen as the future of Liverpool, players from whom the German managed to get the very best, have gone from being part of a Carabao Cup-winning group and making dependable cameo appearances in both European competition and the Premier League, to being scattered in all directions.

Instead, the Reds have spent heavily across their last two transfer windows — with their spending on attackers alone going beyond £500 million — and in the process have lost the heart and soul that made Klopp’s era so memorable and so successful.

Is it really any surprise that Arne Slot was able to win a Premier League title? He inherited a team whose bodies and minds had been relentlessly moulded by the German — one that also still had a career-best and highly motivated Mohamed Salah — and he rode that momentum to top-flight glory in England.

But, sadly, the price of that triumph has probably pushed Liverpool back by years. In order to secure it, Slot chose not to use Klopp’s youngsters in any meaningful way, instead going all-out to squeeze the final drops of mentality and fitness from the core group Klopp had built.

What had once looked like a smart call — or at least one that seemed smart at the time — then carried over into the 2025-26 season, and doubts over Liverpool’s mentality quickly began to appear. When Reds icon Salah told the media last December that he felt he was being pushed out of the club, tensions hit boiling point.

If Liverpool’s hierarchy could make an all-time great feel like that — a player who had carried the side and dragged them over the line to the previous season’s Premier League title — then how must ‘Klopp’s Kids’ have been feeling behind the scenes?

Jarell Quansah? One underwhelming display at the start of the 2024-25 season against Ipswich Town, and then very few chances afterwards. Now he is at Bayer Leverkusen and earning England call-ups. Bobby Clark? He once tore teams apart for the Reds during their Europa League run in 2023-24. Now he is with Derby County, and already has three goal involvements in his first four Championship matches of the season.

Jayden Danns? A true Scouser, and one who scored twice against Southampton in the FA Cup during Klopp’s final season. He is now back with Liverpool Under-21s, and his last first-team appearance came 12 months ago, once again against Southampton — for just 15 minutes.

James McConnell? He is also with the Under-21s. And then there is Bajcetic, who played 27 matches across the German’s final two seasons in charge, and even produced a display worthy of Man of the Match in the 2023 Merseyside derby at Anfield.

Now he has gone, and wrote today: “I never planned to write a goodbye message, because I was where I always wanted to be.

“I fought all the injuries and adversities with the motivation of paying back the love and trust you showed me… We will never know what could have been.”

And perhaps the Spaniard is a slightly different case — a talent held back by injuries and one who was dealt an unfair hand throughout his Premier League career.

But perhaps seeing his fellow Carabao Cup-winning youngsters sent elsewhere on loan and denied first-team opportunities, while also watching standards fall on Merseyside — weaker training sessions, weaker performances, weaker mentality, weaker leadership, all in the aftermath of Klopp’s departure — may also have had some bearing on Bajcetic’s recovery, or the lack of it.

Under the German, Liverpool became a family. Under his successor, that family drifted apart. Can Iraola turn the clock back? That remains unclear, but the damage has already been done. As the saying goes, it is all upwards from here — but is it? Liverpool will hope so.