The squad is already bursting at the seams

On the surface, Liverpool's summer has looked fairly measured. Victor Munoz arrived from Osasuna for £34.5m after his release clause was triggered back in June, Jeremy Jacquet officially completed his £55m switch from Rennes, Ifeanyi Ndukwe joined for £2.6m from Austria Vienna, and Ronald Araujo checked in on a season-long loan from Barcelona earlier this week. Tidy business, nothing to alarm the accountants. But scratch beneath the surface and you will find a squad so bloated it is starting to creak at the joints.

With Araujo's arrival, Liverpool have now filled all 17 of their permitted non-home grown spots in a 25-man Premier League squad. That alone would concentrate the mind. But factor in the number of the club's youngsters who have come of age this summer and now qualify as home grown, and Liverpool currently have 31 senior players who would need to be registered for the forthcoming season. Chuck in Champions League registration rules and that figure rises to at least 33.

Where the Champions League rules make everything more complicated

This is where the maths gets genuinely uncomfortable. Both Jacquet and Giovanni Leoni count as Under-21 players for Premier League purposes, which means they do not eat into the 25-man domestic squad. In Europe, however, it is a different story entirely. Neither player has been at the club long enough to qualify for List B, which is reserved for younger players who have been at their club for the required period. That means both would need to be registered on the main Champions League squad list, just like any senior signing would.

The same caveat applies to any potential new arrival. If Liverpool were to move for a young forward who does not qualify for List B, he would add to the European headache rather than sit neatly outside it. Rio Ngumoha is one player who does now qualify for List B, which at least provides a small measure of relief after the complications his inclusion caused last season.

As things stand, the Reds would need to leave out eight senior players to comply with Champions League registration rules, and six for Premier League duty. Sign one more player who does not count as home grown and those figures rise to at least nine and seven respectively. Ndukwe, meanwhile, has not been able to secure a work permit and will need to leave on loan regardless, so he does not even factor into those calculations.

Which players could make way, and what happens next

Some of the moves are fairly straightforward. Calvin Ramsay currently occupies a non-home grown slot and would likely be the first to make way. Hugo Ekitike, whose Achilles injury is expected to keep him sidelined until the New Year, could also be left out of squads initially to free up space for the likes of Jacquet or Leoni. Conor Bradley, sidelined with a knee injury suffered against Arsenal in January, is another who might be omitted from squads in the short term, though doing so with a home grown player carries its own risks.

That risk comes down to the mid-season registration rules. Clubs are only permitted to make three changes to their Champions League squad ahead of the knockout stages, so leaving Ekitike or Bradley out now and recalling them in January is not quite the clean solution it might appear. Liverpool need to be thinking several moves ahead here, not just plugging gaps for August.

Beyond those injury cases, the source of further space is likely to come from actual departures. Curtis Jones, Cody Gakpo, Alexis Mac Allister, Federico Chiesa, Wataru Endo and Harvey Elliott have all been the subject of transfer speculation this summer, and the reality is that one or more of them will probably need to go before Bradley Barcola, or any other attacking target, can walk through the door. This is not a financial problem for Liverpool — it is a pure squad-size problem, and solving it over the next two and a half weeks will define just how much Andoni Iraola has to work with when the serious business begins.