Klopp's charm has giddy media and fans in his pocket - but tougher tasks await

If Jurgen Klopp can handle the demands of the Premier League with the dexterity and ease with which he seduced Liverpool fans and the nation’s press in his first day in the job, then maybe he will be able to deliver on the bold promise which formed the real centrepiece of his address: winning a title in the next four years.

It was a polished performance from Klopp, and exactly what you would have expected from a man who has been making eyes at the English media for years, flirting with reporters and flashing that trademark grin at every opportunity. Smiling wildly, he paid due reverence to the Anfield atmosphere and Liverpool’s history as he worked the crowd, and the wider audience beyond it, effortlessly.

In this rapturously-received address, and in his first interview with LFC TV, Klopp was keen to show Liverpool fans that he ‘gets’ it. Klopp pressed all the right buttons as he enthused about “emotion” and a “special club”, manoeuvering his audience into an orgasmic frenzy.

This is not a new strategy. Indeed, his successor Brendan Rodgers did exactly the same, going as far as to manufacture an artificial link between himself and Liverpool’s glorious distant past with a couple of weak PR stunts: namely bringing back red goal nets at Anfield and restoring the ‘This Is Anfield’ sign. It was a transparently sycophantic way to get the fans onside, and it worked. For a bit.

But it will take more than glib appeals to emotion and history to transform the fortunes of a club firmly entrenched outside the English elite, and Klopp recognised as much in a press conference rich with vision and intent. In what was an incisive passage of analysis he spoke of the need to let history rest. Klopp does not want to return to red nets and old signs; he wants to create something fresh.

"Twenty-five years ago [since the last league title] is a long time," he said. "History is only the base for us, [we shouldn’t] keep the history in our backpack all day. I want to see the first step next week and not always compare with other times. This is a great club with big potential. Everything is there. Let’s try to start a new way. Everything is different - I don’t know it all but I’m a pretty good listener.”

Klopp was at pains to present himself as just a normal guy “from the Black Forest” but like it or not, he is inspiring messianic fervour. And not just amongst Liverpool fans. The press, too, were enraptured, drooling over Klopp’s pronouncements in what was certainly an assured and entertaining performance.

As noted previously, the English press have not been as thirsty for a coach to arrive in this country since Jose Mourinho won the Champions League with Porto. So it was probably no coincidence that Klopp was treated to a question which has sporadically appeared in managerial unveilings ever since Mourinho first uttered his fateful words upon taking charge of Chelsea.

Eleven years after Mourinho first called himself a “special one”, Klopp was probably surprised to be asked to define himself in relation to that statement – as every Chelsea manager has since, including Mourinho himself when he returned and called himself the “happy one”. Klopp’s rather prosaic attempt to fend it off was met with wholehearted laughter.

Never mind that charisma black hole Avram Grant dealt with the question exactly the same way in 2007 when stepping in at Chelsea following Mourinho’s departure from the club. When it spilled from Klopp’s lips it was as if Moses had descended from Mount Sinai with “I am the normal one” scratched across a tablet of stone.

The giddy, giggling reaction proved Klopp has already won over the media as well as Liverpool supporters – and both groups were overwhelmingly willing partners, ready to be wooed. But the challenges he faces on the pitch are altogether more daunting.

"Please give us time to work on it,” Klopp said. “please be patient.” But euphoria and patience are not easy bedfellows. The bar of expectancy has been raised, despite Klopp's prescient warnings.