Jurgen Klopp, the Liverpool manager, believes that his “intelligent” players grasp and welcome the heightened competition for positions in the forward line. Among the five forwards at his disposal, they have collectively scored 30 goals this season, with only Mohamed Salah, who has 10, being a guaranteed starter each week.

Darwin Nunez, Diogo Jota, Cody Gakpo, and Luis Diaz – the latter unavailable for the last two matches due to his father’s abduction in Colombia – have all made significant contributions when called upon. Despite Klopp’s rotational strategy, they seem to work cohesively as a unit.

“The boys are all smart. The good thing is we have really only smart players, that means they understand they cannot play all the games,” he said.

“It’s not, ‘I want to play Sunday, Wednesday, Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday.’ That’s just not possible but everybody sees (it that way) as well.

“That’s how a smart footballer should think and our boys do that: ‘If I can’t play then it’s better we have another really good player who can play the position’. That’s exactly how I see it.

“It’s only four (because of Diaz’s absence) all of a sudden but there are a lot of games still coming if you see the schedule – after the international break it turns completely crazy – so in that time we have to be ready.

“If you want to play a successful season and not only have successful spells, you need the boys through all these different phases.

“We have to get through this and with not a lot of injuries (and then) we have really the joys but if not the boys have just to fight through it.

“For the moment it’s OK, but we need it like this for pretty much the rest of the season, to be honest.”

Among their front five, Cody Gakpo is arguably the unsung hero. The Dutch international has scored in his last four starts, with three of those starts seeing him net the first goal. However, he has been the player most frequently sacrificed to fill gaps in the squad, initially starting the campaign in midfield.

“If we have everybody available it was never the plan to put Cody there but it was for him something new after (playing) the false nine last year,” added Klopp.

“But he’s a super-smart player so he can adapt to that and we want him to adapt.

“He’s just a versatile striker, he can play everywhere up front there. For us it’s super-important. He arrives in the box, he is a good shooter, he has a good nose for the situation.

“How I said, the boys up front all like each other, there’s not this battle of ‘Will I start?’ They know they can all play together.”

Liverpool will face Luton on Sunday in search of their first away clean sheet in any competition this season. However, they are currently on a six-match unbeaten run, with four consecutive wins.

As it stands, they find themselves in a four-way race for the title, but Klopp is cautious not to get overly excited about their strong start.

“It’s so early. I’m so happy that we have a really good team together but look at the other teams, they are really good as well,” he said.

“A lot of really good teams are out there and it’s the Premier League so it’s not about celebrating the moment and being relieved that we kind of can play football again.

“No, it’s really about digging into the season, use the full potential of this group, get everything out of it and then let’s see.”