With just six weeks of the Premier League season remaining, plenty of lingering questions are set to be answered for Liverpool.
The biggest of those is of course whether the Reds can hold onto their lead at the top of the table and bring home a 20th English league title.
Given they have maintained a 12-point gap down to Arsenal in second with only eight games left to play, even the biggest of sceptics would accept that Liverpool are likely to do that.
While the Premier League question is almost answered, though, the uncertainty over the futures of Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah continues to rumble on.
Trent Alexander-Arnold looks likely to leave, and there cannot be many amongst the fanbase who are still hopeful of hearing that the Liverpool academy graduate has extended his stay at Anfield.
For Van Dijk and Salah, however, time is quickly running out and optimism is starting to fade. And as fans scramble to decide which way the pendulum will swing, they would do well to take a look at what’s been going on with Kevin De Bruyne and Thomas Muller at Man City and Bayern Munich respectively.
Thomas Muller could provide Liverpool clue
As Liverpool have been dealing with a contract catastrophe this season, Bayern have been doing exactly the same.
Big players such as Alphonso Davies, Joshua Kimmich and Muller were all set to see their deals expire at the end of the year.
But while Davies extended his contract in February and Kimmich did the same a month later, Bayern announced on Saturday that the biggest legend of them all, Thomas Muller, will leave.
This came on the back of big news from the Premier League on Friday, where another soon-to-be free agent, De Bruyne, announced that he will not sign an extension with Man City.
Clearly, six weeks is seen as the appropriate amount of time to mourn the exit of a club legend. For Liverpool fans, that will mean nervousness over Van Dijk and Salah especially.
While the signs have been positive that both could still extend, both De Bruyne and Muller have seen this point as the right one to call a halt on their own talks. As a result, it feels like if bad news is coming for Liverpool supporters, it’s going to come quickly.
No news could be good news
If Van Dijk and Salah are to leave Liverpool, they will both deserve a heroes send-off in the manner De Bruyne and Muller can expect from their respective clubs.
Consequently, the next week or two would feel like the right time to put those wheels in motion.
But, if nothing of the sort is forthcoming from Van Dijk, Salah or Liverpool themselves, then it could be construed as good news on the contracts front.
De Bruyne and Muller have shown that clarity is important when it comes to legendary players waving goodbye. The longer we dribble towards the end of the season without anything similar from the Reds, perhaps the more likely it becomes that it won’t come at all. That could be good.
City and Bayern fans will be experiencing pain at the thought of losing players synonymous with their own clubs. Liverpool supporters will be dreading getting that same dagger. It really is crunch-time.
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