Jurgen Klopp helps to ensure that Liverpool are ahead of Paris Saint-Germain both on and off the pitch

If you narrow it down and seek to credit one person as the reason why Liverpool now seem like a club where the possibilities seem endless, you will arrive at Klopp

In the painting of one of Anfield’s most stunningly chaotic nights, nestled amongst all of the unusual happenings was the moment Thomas Tuchel, needing a goal, turned to his bench and told his number 17 that he was coming on for his debut.

Tuchel knows Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting from their time together in the Bundesliga at Mainz and so, he probably appreciates better than most what the 6ft 3inch German centre forward can bring.

In fairness, an equaliser did follow from Kylian Mbappé three minutes later. And yet, the introduction of a 29-year-old who scored just five times in the Premier League before relegation with Stoke last season, reflects a deeper story about the club he now represents, one that is under pressure to balance their books and meet Financial Fair Play rules.

Tuchel’s involvement – particularly as the manager of Paris Saint Germain – provided a convenient arc for Liverpool, affording the opportunity to emphasise the distance that has been travelled under Jürgen Klopp in the two and a half or so years since the German coaches last met at Anfield.

That improbable Liverpool victory over Borussia Dortmund had been in the Europa League rather than the Champions League, on a night, indeed, where Klopp selected ten different players to perform under the lights of a stadium, which like his team, was under construction.

If you narrow it down and seek to credit one person as the reason why Liverpool now seem like a club where the possibilities seem endless, you will arrive at Klopp. Yet it was Liverpool’s owners that sought to appoint him in the first place, ignoring the suggestions from “pre-eminent advisors” having invited him to a solicitors’ office in Manhattan where he blew them away with his personality and appetite for the job.

Fenway could have gone another way, with Carlo Ancelotti – once of PSG, ironically – missing out because it was felt that Liverpool might have been too extreme a place for him and that he was better suited roles in Europe’s biggest cities. With that in mind, it will be intriguing to see how Ancelotti relates to the zeal of Naples where Liverpool go in fortnight’s time, having trounced the same opponent in a pre-season friendly at the start of August.

L’Equipe reported on Tuesday how Klopp had spent several hours trying to convince Mbappé to join Liverpool in the summer of 2017, promising to make him the joint highest earner beside Philippe Coutinho. Mbappé was “charmed by Klopp’s eloquence and enthusiasm” but Liverpool could not match the bids made by PSG and Real Madrid.

Fenway’s ambition and competence was questioned at the time, perhaps not entirely unfairly considering the occasions in the past where the various people representing them in the transfer market had failed to negotiate the sort of deals that ultimately enabled their rivals to stay ahead of them.

The reality here is that contrasting commitments to FFP influenced outcomes, though perhaps they were not definitive against Liverpool considering they were so far away then from where they are now in sporting terms.

Liverpool celebrate their opening goal of the night (Getty) (Getty Images)

There is a very simple explanation for Fenway’s sudden willingness to start spending big on players like Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker, even though the figures that brought them to Anfield remain way outside the financial stratosphere in which PSG operated in to take Mbappé from Monaco. Has Klopp’s guidance been so seamless that for anyone assessing his work it has become easy to forget that he sold Coutinho mid-season and still reached a Champions League final five months later? It is encouraging that Fenway have trusted Klopp and Michael Edwards, the sporting director, to reinvest £200million but it is not outrageous. It simply a meeting of basic economics, managerial judgement and a development of trust.

If Fenway sold Liverpool tomorrow, the coldest assessment of the last eight years would not reflect generously on them considering Liverpool’s lack of trophies. History tends to ignore processes and instead focuses on the winners and the losers. But then, Qatari investment in Paris started around the same time as Fenway did at Anfield. Would history reflect so well on the arrangement there if it ended quickly, even though there have been five Ligue 1 titles in seven years?

These are owners with very different thoughts about the best way forward and despite Fenway’s struggle to win hearts and minds on Merseyside, Klopp’s appointment has made a lot more seem right about their approach which off the field has also included an increased stadium capacity and firm proposals for a new training facility. Compare this to Paris, where the seats in the ground have changed colour to reflect the team it represents, but the ground is still owned by the city council and not a lot else been developed aside from the quality of a squad that authorities are attempting to establish whether was affordable according to the laws of the game.

PSG do not own their own ground (Getty)

As the World Cup reached its quarter final stage in the summer, a two-paragraph statement was slipped onto Uefa’s website, announcing a new review into PSG’s alleged financial mismanagement. Basic FFP principles state that any club cannot overspend according to the income it receives. The focus of an investigation in 2014 had been a sponsorship deal with the Qatar Tourist Authority which was found to be worth a lot less in the open market than the £167million PSG had claimed it to be and on that occasion, the club was fined €60million in prize money earned from playing in European competition.

The spotlight is now on them again after the measures taken to bring Mbappé and Neymar to the French capital in 2017. For the first time, Uefa’s adjudicatory chamber has taken over the PSG case and as deliberations continue, at the very top of the concerns is the thorny issue of credibility: will European football’s governing body be brave enough to enforce its own rules and punish a club where it will really hurt them? PSG cannot be thrown out of this year’s Champions League but it is conceivable a hefty punishment will follow.

One of Uefa’s responsibilities will be to separate coincidence from fact. PSG had been under pressure to sell players to balance the books at the end of the financial year in June. It is a fact, for example, that on June 26, Javier Pastore departed Paris Saint Germain after seven seasons to return to Italy with AS Roma. It is also a fact that the Argentine midfielder had just celebrated his 29th birthday, that too his value did not depreciate in terms of how he was regarded by the clubs involved in the deal.

When he left Palermo in 2011 he was owned by a third party and this meant the Sicilians received a couple of million Euros less than PSG ended up selling him for all those years later. It is also a fact that in April, Roma had signed one of the biggest sponsorship deals in Italian history. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that Roma now has the logo of Qatar Airways emblazoned across their shirts.