Here is a number that will surprise most Liverpool supporters. Their net spend this summer was bigger than last summer's. More than £200m again. And Andoni Iraola still walks out of the window with a squad that does not quite add up.
Jamie Carragher put it bluntly on Sky Sports: "It does not look like a balanced squad. Liverpool are short in the full-back areas and probably a midfield player as well."
Too many left-wingers, nobody on the right
The headline signing is Bradley Barcola, £123m from Paris Saint-Germain. A serious player. The problem is where he plays.
Liverpool lost Mohamed Salah, arguably the best right-footed left-winger the Premier League has ever had, and replaced him by stacking the opposite profile. Cody Gakpo has started on the left. Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike have both been used there. Rio Ngumoha broke through on the left. Victor Munoz, signed this summer, spent his one top-flight season on the left.
"Liverpool have not got a real out-and-out right-sided attacker," Carragher said. "We have not got anybody with a left foot on that right side, like Mo Salah. I am disappointed. I am not quite sure what we are going to do on that right wing right now."
Barcola is versatile enough to fill in. But you do not pay £123m for a player to be a compromise.
The full-back hole is the bigger worry
When Jeremie Frimpong arrived last year, Liverpool were careful to say he was not a Trent Alexander-Arnold replacement. He has started both league games at right-back. With Conor Bradley injured, he is the only specialist available. Dominik Szoboszlai has been floated as an emergency option, which tells you enough.
Full-backs matter more in Iraola's system than in almost any other. Frimpong and Milos Kerkez sit in the top three in the Premier League for sprints this season. The only man ahead of them is Adrien Truffert of Bournemouth, Iraola's old club. That is not a coincidence.
What happens behind them
Push both full-backs high at the same time and somebody has to cover. Compare the average positions from the title-winning season under Arne Slot with the first two games under Iraola and the gap between a deep back line and an advanced press is obvious.
Newcastle found it inside five minutes on the opening day. Centre-backs deep, full-backs high, nobody in between. Goal.
"I do not believe that midfield can function with the personnel in there," Carragher said. "For me, it does not work. And it is not just about personnel, it is the structure the manager is asking for."
Ryan Gravenberch carried that load for Slot. Alexis Mac Allister's physicality has dipped over the past 18 months. Whether Iraola even wants a true holding midfielder is unclear. At Bournemouth he asked his midfielders to engage high up the pitch, not sit.
Iraola's answer
The manager is not pretending the problem does not exist, but he will not gut his own idea to solve it.
"We did not do a proper lockdown. But there is a balance," he said. "We cannot go from one way where we send a lot of people forward to keeping everyone back so we do not arrive with numbers. I do not want to tell Ryan Gravenberch not to carry the ball or arrive in the box.
"It is a matter of identifying the situation. You cannot be with the joystick every time. There are players that are very good at smelling the danger. Recognising those situations is the job."
Where this leaves them
Two high-scoring draws from two games feels about right. The most expensive squad Liverpool have ever assembled is also the most obviously flawed one they have had in a decade. Some weeks they will simply outscore people. Other weeks the space behind Frimpong and Kerkez will cost them.
Ipswich at Portman Road on Friday night is the next test. Watch the right wing.
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