The signing of Christian Benteke is the gamble which will most likely define whether Brendan Rodgers is still the manager of Liverpool Football Club this time next year, or not.
With his future at the helm dependent on a successful season this time around - Rodgers is banking on Benteke to be the man to help spearhead the Reds to glory in the absence of first-choice striker Daniel Sturridge, who remains out injured for the foreseeable future.
Up to now, the Northern Irishman has spent well this summer, bringing in six players at a low net spend after the £49 million sale of Raheem Sterling, and his seventh signing - the £32.5 million Benteke - takes the ballpark figure spent on new additions to near the £80 million mark.
But though the Reds clearly need a 20-goal a season striker after their struggles in front of goal last season, there is still very much a heated debate as to whether the burly Belgian can bring the firepower Liverpool so badly need.
Benteke seems fit for the bill at first sight
On the face of it, bringing in a striker who has scored only less goals than Sergio Aguero, Luis Suarez and Robin Van Persie since making his debut three years ago makes perfect sense to a side in need of goals.
With Sturridge's never-ending injury woes and the struggles of Fabio Borini, Mario Balotelli and Rickie Lambert - at least two of whom are expected to be offloaded this summer - the Reds would otherwise be left going into the new season with just Divock Origi and Danny Ings - neither of whom are really proven.
Those two, as promising as they are, aren't yet of the quality to fill in with the goal hauls Liverpool will require to help them towards a top-four finish, and so Benteke seems a viable option to lead the line instead, given the fact that he has plenty of experience after near single-handedly helping to keep Villa in the top-flight in the last three years.
Add to that, that there is an abundance of creativity in Liverpool's ranks waiting to be exploited - perhaps even more so than 2013-14. With the right goalscorer who can finish the glut of chances they will undoubtedly create - top-four becomes a very realistic proposition once again, and Benteke clearly is a goalscorer, his record proves that. The signs are there for the 24-year-old to be exactly the man they need, according to the statistics at least.
But it's not all quite that simple, and whether Benteke is actually the type of forward they need, is another matter.
Can Brendan utilise Benteke's biggest strengths?
In the last few years, those who have excelled up top under Rodgers have often thrived off of their own clever movement and pace. Luis Suarez and Sturridge are the obvious examples, but Raheem Sterling was equally as influential in leading the line last season.
His finishing may not have been quite as effective as the pairing that spearheaded a sublime title-challenging side two years ago, but Sterling's lateral movement beyond the back-four - added to a combination of other qualities - made the Reds' front-line much more dynamic and allowed them to become much more cohesive in the final third.
Rodgers then clearly has a penchant for building attacking sides whose focal point consists of a small, quick, nippy striker who can press and make an endless amount of runs in behind the back-four, the likes of which the Reds' attacking midfielders can then pick out with a through ball.
And yet, for the few months before Rodgers opted to try Sterling as a striker, Liverpool were bleak and dull in an unsuccessful 4-2-3-1. Be it Lambert or Balotelli up-front alone, they were slow and unpredictable. Worst of all, they were distinctly unexciting - because the system didn't work, not for the immobile strikers, or the attacking midfielders - who had very little to work with.
It was a rapid decline in such a short space of time, and the effects of such a poor start to the season proved irreparable come the end of the campaign, leaving Liverpool sixth, having scored just 52 goals - 49 less than the season before.
So this summer, Rodgers has rightly set about arresting the goalscoring decline and rediscovering that pressing from the front style. In pre-season, Origi and Ings have already proved effective antidotes. Their lively playing styles have been reminisicent of the displays we came to expect from Liverpool two seasons ago and though their finishing still needs development, all the basic tools are there for them to thrive.
For that reason, the Reds have looked much more fluid in the final third in their first three pre-season games, even without Roberto Firmino, Philippe Coutinho and Sturridge - arguably their three most talented players.
That, then, is perhaps why there's a confusion surrounding the imminent signing of Benteke. Admittedly, he has never been in a system which has asked him to press, and whilst he's far from lackadaisical in terms of his movement - he is still a different type of striker to those he will join in a red shirt.
Origi, Ings and of course Sturridge are all players whom fit the mould of Rodgers archetypal front-man, but Benteke is a different kettle of fish altogether.
Is there a danger of déjà vu?
"So what?" you ask, which is more than a fair question. After all, several of the top title-winning teams from the Premier League era have had the weapons in their armoury to mix it up and change their style to a more direct approach.
The 'Plan B' - as it's more colloquially known - is something Liverpool could certainly utilise, with their innocent squad often bullied by the bigger, more physical sides in England and Europe.
Benteke certainly brings that, but there are worrying comparisons to be made to strikers of a similar ilk under Rodgers.
Andy Carroll didn't get a game in a red shirt under the Northern Irishman, whilst Rickie Lambert and Mario Balotelli - both target men known for similar key attributes to Benteke, have hardly set the world alight on Merseyside.
Arguably, Benteke is better than all of those three. He's more all-rounded than many give him credit for, with his good close control, dribbling ability and excellent long-range shooting - added to his renowned aerial prowess and overwhelming strength.
Therefore, despite the fact that Carroll, Lambert and Balotelli also all have good technical ability and have been or were poorly utilised on Merseyside, it is perhaps a poorly drawn comparison on the surface.
But it is not the quality of the strikers that come into question, rather - how they were used.
Lambert and Balotelli, under Rodgers, were both placed in systems where they were expected to play like Suarez - when that's simply not how they have ever played, or ever will play.
Benteke's situation is eerily similar to no.9 Lambert's in particular. The Belgian is a better player, sure, but the expectations when Lambert came in to offer a 'Plan B' were that, at £4 million and for someone who supported the club, the transfer couldn't go far wrong.
But 12 months on and Lambert already looks set to leave, with West Bromwich Albion his new destination. Turns out, it did go wrong. In fact, very little went right for Lambert at Liverpool - aside from that magical moment in the away end at Villa Park.
Lambert never looked fitting in to the Reds' style because they never looked like fitting to him. Nor did they with Balotelli, instead asking him to take up an unfamiliar style of play and provide the goals that they severely needed.
Lambert gave it his best shot, impressing in a brief stint of games in November before fading out, whilst Balotelli was frustratingly immobile and was consequently forced to feed off scraps. But then, what could Liverpool expect?
They bought Balotelli knowing that was how he had been at every club beforehand. Starving him of support in a single striker system and expecting him to become a player he never had been had rather unsurprising results.
And there is every chance that a similar situation could arise with Benteke. With Daniel Sturridge out for at least the first few months of the season, the Belgian is likely to lead the line alone - with Origi and Ings in reserve.
There is no doubt that Benteke is more able than his predecessors to perform up-top alone, but there is a cloud of uncertainty as to whether Rodgers will learn from his lessons or not.
Yes, Benteke has often proved he is more than "just a target man" but there is very little arguing about what he is best at. He can press, he can harry, he can work the channels and make intelligent runs too - but not as well as he can get on the end of a cross or hold up the ball, and he certainly can't do those things as well as Sturridge, and other targets Liverpool briefly looked at - such as Salomon Rondon and Carlos Bacca.
Better players around Benteke = more goals?
The style with which Liverpool play with Benteke in the side, obviously alters whether he does well or not. There seems to be a belief that because he scored so many goals at Villa - he'll do even better at Liverpool.
To manage such an impressive goals-to-games ratio in a team threatened by relegation and managed by Paul Lambert is no mean feat, let's get that straight. So surely - in a better side with more creative players - he should do better, no?
Well not necessarily. Just because he scored lots of goals at Villa Park, it doesn't simply translate that he will do just as well at Anfield because of the improved players around him.
For the Belgian national team, for example, he plays with some of the most technically apt footballers in Europe - the likes of Eden Hazard, Dries Mertens and even Kevin Mirallas. But despite this, his performances are arguably much less effective than they are for Villa.
Seven goals in 24 games is still a good return internationally, but it perhaps goes to show that just because he's around better players - it doesn't mean he will score goals more regularly. This, largely, is due to the fact that the Red Devils do not fit their attack around Benteke like Villa have done in recent months.
Under Tim Sherwood, they concentrated their attack on getting the ball to Benteke and making the most his aerial ability, which allows him to either bring the ball down and hold it up for his team-mates to get up for him and provide support, or simply his aerial dominance to bully defenders and get an effort away on goal.
Doing so heralded 11 goals in the last 12 games of the season, from just 23 shots. Even more impressively, 14 of the 23 shots he attempted were on target, meaning a remarkable shots-on-target to goals ratio of 78.5%.
But it's also a disservice to his immense improvements since joining Villa from Jupiler Pro League side Genk to say that he will only score goals if you focus on his strengths.
Even before Sherwood came along - Benteke had still scored 37 goals in 84 games before the ex-Tottenham Hotspur boss, with Paul Lambert in charge.
His system is arguably more alike how Liverpool should, and could, play - but with the added bonus that the Reds have extra creativity and industry from their midfield, not simply restricting them to counter-attacking play.
In the early months - Rodgers is likely to use a 4-3-3 with Firmino and Coutinho behind Benteke, which would be slightly reminiscent of the shape which Villa used with Andi Weimann and Gabby Agbonlahor on the flanks, only with more creativity.
In that sense then, Benteke could be more efficient for the Reds - because whilst the pair worked hard and utilised their pace well in claret and blue, they were never the type to create chance after chance - so Benteke did extremely well to manage the goal tallies he did. In fact, each year - he accounted for an average of 35% of Villa's league.
So there is every faith that with more chances, then more goals should come. At least - that's what Rodgers is hoping for.
His goalscoring form with Belgium shows that it's no guarantee Benteke will plunder goals for fun at Liverpool, but given his conversion rates in a statistically poor creative Villa side - there is cause for hope that he replicate his form in a side with plenty of creative influences.
A gamble worth taking?
Inside the last 12 months, £32.5 million has bought the likes of Alexis Sanchez and Diego Costa - two of the best players in the league last season - and it is a big outlay just for Liverpool to hope that Benteke does well, but clearly Rodgers has a lot of confidence in his abilities to become an all-rounded, pressing, goalscoring machine to help power his side to a top-four finish.
And whilst some could point out Rodgers' questionable history of transfers as Liverpool manager, there is no denying that he has spotted a diamond in the rough before. Coutinho and Sturridge the two that come to mind.
Benteke is a very good striker, and another potential gem. He's done it on a consistent basis at Villa Park and when he's in-form, he's one of the best in the business - but the issue is whether Rodgers allows Benteke to play to the best of his abilities, rather than asking him to become someone as lively and relentless as Suarez.
He's not the perfect fit, and there are perhaps other alternatives out there who would be a perfect fit - but if Rodgers can get it right tactically, then the decision to bring Benteke to the Reds could prove a phenomenal one. After all, it's clear the Belgian has all the tools to potentially score 20-goals a season, if placed in the right system and used to the best of his abilities - but whether that's what Liverpool do will remain to be seen.
Most certainly - signing Benteke could be the final nail in Brendan Rodgers' coffin, or it could prove his most inspired decision yet. He desperately needs it to be the latter.