I had concerns, but they were more "vibes" than about actual tactical thinking and facts.
Whenever everyone applauds a club for winning the transfer window by making obvious decisions, I feel it often ends up not being as good. When Sky Sports pundits are applauding your choices, you are most likely making the wrong decisions. I also felt the signings were a bit too obvious. Kinda reminded me of the Caroll, Downing window. We are at our best when we are out of the box - Mane, Salah, Robertson, Coutinho.
We are a middle-class club. Even if we win 10 CL in a row, we will remain a middle-class club. We are at our best when we identify players just below the radar of Madrid, Barcelona, and Chelsea. Our best could dance, had technique and fire, and would bravely go into a street fight in Toxteth. I wouldn't want to fight with Robertson, Mane, Suarez, 2007 Torres, and 2016-2019 Salah. When we went big - Van Dijk, Allison - similar profile. I am betting both of them would flatten everyone who came up to them, and then Van Dijk would put on his favorite fruity hair spray, and Allison would continue preaching the value of nonviolence.
I spent the Spring talking about value multipliers. Those are our best signings. When we went into this "only players who would improve us are the players Madrid, Bayern, Chelsea would target", we ended up not being that good. Thiago, Caicedo, and Tchouameni are all a waste of our efforts, or did not quite elevate us as we would have liked. We rectified that for midfield by going back to what we do best. We may be worth 10 billion dollars, but we are scrappy, mischievous streetfighters who look up to every challenge in front of us, however overwhelming, and say f** you and wade into the fight. We need that in our signings. Our fans have a sixth sense for that.
I don't watch many non-Liverpool games, so I don't know much about our signings. But I did watch a Netherlands game and a Leverkusen game, and posted here in Spring that I hoped we wouldn't go for Frimpong. I didn't quite get how he would survive in the PL.
I will admit I was caught up in the euphoria of spending half a billion and surfed that wave over the summer. There was this "where is the pace and physicality" warning sign flashing at the back of my mind, but I chose not to ponder over that.