Jamie Carragher played 737 games for Liverpool. He won trophies and played a huge part in the club’s most famous victory, in Istanbul.

That is what makes some of the criticism I have been reading from Liverpool supporters so striking. His contribution deserves enormous respect. Yet some of those supporters are now questioning what he says off the pitch.

His latest column helps explain why.

Carragher described Liverpool as being in the midst of a “failed galácticos era”. He qualified that with “as things stand”, but this was still a sweeping judgement after four league games under Andoni Iraola.

Liverpool have now played five. There is a long way to go before I would be comfortable deciding what this team will become, let alone how its era should be remembered.

That does not mean Carragher has been wrong about everything.

I do not rate Milos Kerkez, so I am not going to pretend his criticism of him offended me.

Florian Wirtz is different.

Carragher has gone considerably further than I have. After Bournemouth, he said Wirtz would not currently be in his Liverpool team and compared his contribution unfavourably with players at clubs further down the Premier League.

Wirtz has not done enough. He was poor against Bournemouth and there have been games where Liverpool needed much more from him.

But I have not written him off.

I also think he has been unlucky at times this season. Even against Bournemouth, when things were not going his way, he did not disappear. He kept showing for the ball and trying to influence the game.

Carragher sounds much closer to deciding what Wirtz is at Liverpool.

I still think there is time for that story to change.

And that is really my problem with the wider argument.

Agreeing with criticism of individual players does not mean accepting a verdict on the whole recruitment strategy.

We also need to be fair about the timing. Wirtz and Alexander Isak already had a season at Liverpool behind them. Carragher questioning them after the opening game of this season was not the same as questioning them after their first Liverpool appearance. He was entitled to consider what had gone before.

A change of manager does not wipe that record clean. It should, however, leave some room for things to improve.

Isak now has four goals in five league games. His latest, at Bournemouth, came after Carragher’s column appeared. That was not evidence available to Carragher when he wrote it, but it shows why there needs to be room for the assessment to change.

The goals are coming.

That does not settle every question about Isak’s signing or justify every pound Liverpool spent. It does make me reluctant to include him in a verdict of failure.

Barcola has had even less opportunity to establish himself. He came into this Liverpool side without a proper pre-season after the World Cup and has barely had a chance to get going.

His fee raises expectations. It does not remove the need for time.

Wirtz needs to do considerably more. Isak is scoring. Barcola is still settling.

Those are three different situations. I do not see why they should be bundled into one conclusion.

Carragher also took issue with Liverpool fielding three £100m players, calling it “wrong”. His argument is that the club’s success was built on signing players who would become stars rather than paying record fees for those who already had that reputation.

There is a proper discussion to be had there.

Were these the right signings? Did they address the team’s needs? Has Liverpool spent its money well?

But the number of expensive players on the pitch does not answer those questions. Neither does calling this the most expensive squad in the club’s history.

Transfer fees change over time. A record total, by itself, tells us little about whether the players fit together.

That is what we need to judge. And under Iraola, that judgement is still developing.

Patience was part of Carragher’s conversation with the manager before the season. To be fair, he has continued to defend Iraola. It would be wrong to portray his latest column as an attack on the manager when his argument is that Iraola has inherited problems created by others.

He can believe the manager deserves time while also believing Liverpool recruited badly. Those positions are not contradictory.

But giving Iraola time should leave open the possibility that he improves these players and gets more from them together.

Otherwise, we are allowing the manager time while deciding in advance that the players he is working with represent a failed plan.

That brings me to the sentence which bothered me most:

“Whatever Iraola achieves, no one will convince me that Liverpool have executed a well-conceived plan.”

That was the line that made me leave a comment.

What if Liverpool win the treble this season?

That is not a prediction. It is a question about how firmly Carragher has already made up his mind.

There is a reasonable defence of his position. A good manager can succeed despite poor recruitment. Winning a trophy would not prove that every signing was sensible, every fee justified or the squad perfectly balanced. Even a hugely successful season would not put every decision beyond criticism.

But suppose those expensive signings become central to that success.

Surely their contribution would count when judging the plan to bring them together?

“As things stand” leaves room for the picture to change. “Whatever Iraola achieves” appears to close it again.

I am not asking Carragher to say Liverpool got everything right. I am questioning how he can already be certain that nothing this team achieves will persuade him otherwise.

Carragher is a pundit, not a Liverpool spokesman. His job is not to protect the club, and his playing career does not oblige him to give it favourable treatment.

At times, though, it feels to me as if he tries so hard not to appear biased towards Liverpool that he goes too far the other way.

That is my impression, not a claim to know his motives.

Some of the criticism I have been reading from supporters suggests I am not alone in finding his verdicts excessive.

He does not need to defend Liverpool.

But he should at least leave room for Liverpool to prove him wrong.