And no, I wouldnt claim that Conte was good at it. Considering our poor record against teams of higher quality I would argue that Conte just consolidated his concept of soaking up pressure rather than attempting to distrupt the opponents play. We dominated poorer teams because we were impenetrabte, but that didnt take much adaptability as we were so much better than the rest of the serie a player by player. Look at how we crumbled against Bayern or how insecure we felt in crucial chl games where we needed a result.
What poor record? We raped every big team in Italy consistently (more so than the last and the current season) and we did great against Chelsea and very good against Madrid. Only Bayern managed to outplay us. If anything, Conte's CL group elimination was down to dropping points against the weaker teams unnecessarily.
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Indeed

They really lucked out with insane quality like him at the time, but failed to capitalize on building team around him ambitiously and buy top quality to go somewhere consistently with him. Poorly run footballing wise. Without prime Gerrard and a Benitez before he became outdated, they really have not had a real shot at becoming consistent top 4 team anymore. No matter how hard they spent to improve, they are nothing more then a stepping stone to the top now despite their rich history.
They have the money and history to build a top team. The club has just been extremely badly run since Benitez left. They got terrible coaches and their transfer dealings have been the worst in Europe.
Under Benitez they were good on the market and had a good coach. Alonso, Mascherano, Kuyt , Torres were all brilliant signings that gave them a lot of great football and great profit when they were sold.They almost won the league against an excellent United and were one of the most feared teams in CL. They then threw it all away first by selling Alonso and not replacing him adequately and then it all went down hill with the terrible coaches and transfer dealings.
Now they have a top coach again and they have the necessary funds to build a team that can compete. Spending heavily obviously helps a lot in being successful, liverpool just havent spent their money correctly. The kind of money spent on Carrol, Benteke, Lallana, Markovic, Allen, Adams, Lovren, and many more could have built a top team with the right transfer director or a coach that knows how to build teams. If Klopp is as good on the market as his resume suggests (meaning that the BVB directors do not deserve the full credit for the squads they gave him) then with Liverpool's finances they should be back in the top 4 positions by next season and to be consistently there.
EPL in general should improve by next season once better coaches are signed (Pep for Pellegrini, Simeone for Hiddink and I dont know who for LVG).