There was plenty of talk about the decline of Henderson and Fabinho last season (and Milner for a few years). Thiago and Keita have both had their issues too, so it's definitely been talked about that we need players. People pinned their hopes on Elliott and Carvalho giving us the attacking edge we lacked in midfield, but no one really could have foreseen the entire collapse of Fabinho. He'd showed signs of decline, but many were hoping it was a form/injury thing, not many could or did envisage that he would be so fucked this season, and now Henderson is joining the rot, while Thiago has been Thiago, which is a pointless luxury when you don't have the defensive support around him.
But to suggest there weren't alarm bells is wide of the mark, at least in the sense that "we're not going to get much more from this group". The concerns have been there since we returned after winning the league and we didn't quite look the same. Last year could have been magnificent, but in the end, if anything, as we reached the end of the season it was not having the legs to finish the job that cost us, and that really just compounded everyone's worries. Yes it's a double edged thing - the same squad got us there, but you always felt like it was a bit of a "one last hurrah" for some of them. And as I've said elsewhere, there's definitely been a feeling of job done in some departments and with some players, since winning the league.
