Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool aiming to make greatness happen again
/dnl.eurosport.com/sd/img/placeholder/eurosport_logo_1x1.png){kind=logo}
Updated 21/05/2017 at 22:24 GMT
As Liverpool return to the Champions League Jurgen Klopp still has work to do if his team are to make greatness happen again at Anfield.
Jurgen Klopp manager / head coach of Liverpool and Adam Lallana of Liverpool celebrate at full time during the Premier League match between Liverpool and Middlesbrough at Anfield on May 21, 2017 in Liverpool, England.
Image credit: Getty Images
There is a new slogan around Anfield. “Where greatness happens,” can sound like a marketing man’s catchphrase. Retreat into Liverpool’s past, and not even the distant past, and it is definitely true. There are times in recent years when Anfield has been a place where dullness and sadness have happened, but few want to advertise that.
Now, at least, there is the sense that something is happening. Something stop-start, inexplicable, exasperating, invigorating and breathtaking at various points, but something. It is harder to sustain the illusion of greatness when a season begins in the Europa League, but next year will not. “A club like Liverpool needs to be in the Champions League,” said Jurgen Klopp. Under his auspices, they will be, providing they can plot a path through a play-off.
So much of Klopp’s management is based on belief. He is a motivational coach, for players and fans alike. Missing out on the top four would have dented that belief. Instead, it was reinforced. Klopp’s name rang around Anfield as players, staff and assorted relatives embarked on a lap of honour notable for its relaxed pace. Liverpool could luxuriate in a sense of achievement, something that has rarely been the case at Anfield in recent Mays.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2017/05/21/2088528-43765770-2560-1440.jpg)
Liverpool's German manager Jurgen Klopp (R) talks to Liverpool's Brazilian midfielder Lucas Leiva as he waits to be substituted on during the English Premier League football match between Liverpool and Middlesbrough at Anfield in Liverpool, north west Eng
Image credit: Getty Images
There was satisfaction and seriousness. Klopp saved the exaggerated air punches and exuberant, glasses-breaking celebrations for lesser occasions. The megawatt grin and the booming laugh were kept in reserve for another day. He described the task of beating Middlesbrough in short, factual sentences. “We are Liverpool,” he said. “We have to deliver. We did it again.”
Liverpool have delivered in imitable fashion, invariably against the top teams, intermittently against the rest. Middlesbrough were overcome courtesy of goals by Georginio Wijnaldum, Philippe Coutinho and Adam Lallana, Liverpool casting off their difficulties against defensive teams to score three times in 11 minutes; one from a Klopp signing, two from players he has championed.
His side have eschewed specialist strikers and embraced attacking midfielders. Three struck when Liverpool required a response to early goals posted elsewhere by Manchester City and Arsenal. Each of the scorers is emblematic. Each has taken a stride forward this season. It is the sort of organic upgrade Klopp likes, rather than bolting superstars on to his side. He prefers alchemy to retail therapy and preferred talking of the prestige of the Champions League to the financial rewards, but his options expand in the transfer market now.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2017/05/21/2088257-43760350-2560-1440.jpg)
Georginio Wijnaldum of Liverpool celebrates scoring his sides first goal during the Premier League match between Liverpool and Middlesbrough at Anfield on May 21, 2017 in Liverpool, England.
Image credit: Getty Images
It is a reward for progress. “You need to feel the improvement,” the German said. “76 points is an outstanding number.” It is 16 more than last season which, even considering Liverpool have not had the extra workload European football entails, still represents significant progress.
It was an unusually factual interpretation from Klopp. He tends to be more about the emotion. A more typical remark followed. “Everything feels good at this club at the moment,” he said. Klopp has restored the feel-good factor after Brendan Rodgers’ unhappy final 15 months.
And yet it is undeniable that Liverpool have been here before: back in the Champions League after an absence, looking to become regulars. Last time they could not. Now the bar has been raised. “The step is for us to be around the best teams in the world because we are at one of the best clubs in the world,” said Klopp.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2017/05/21/2088526-43765730-2560-1440.jpg)
Liverpool's German manager Jurgen Klopp applauds the fans following the English Premier League football match between Liverpool and Middlesbrough at Anfield in Liverpool, north west England on May 21, 2017.
Image credit: Getty Images
That is the bigger task. Certainly a wretched display from Dejan Lovren, who was fortunate not to concede an early penalty for bundling Patrick Bamford over, showed a centre-back is needed and scarcely suggested the Croatian belongs in one of the world’s top sides.
But the paradox of Klopp’s Liverpool is that they tend to match the best they meet but lack the consistency to compete with them over a campaign. They completed the season unbeaten against the top eight: only Bournemouth’s end-of-season renaissance prevented them from becoming the first side to go undefeated against the upper-half teams since Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea in 2004-5.
The blueprint remains inimitable, eccentric and perhaps in need of redrawing to bring a more multi-dimensional threat for a season when more fixtures are guaranteed and more players required. Klopp improvised a solution at the end of the season with a midfield diamond, but the lack of width remained a theme, along with a reliance on a small core and a tendency towards sterility if they are not gegenpressing with complete fervour.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2017/05/21/2088530-43765810-2560-1440.jpg)
Jurgen Klopp manager / head coach of Liverpool celebrates after Georginio Wijnaldum of Liverpool scores a goal to make it 1-0 during the Premier League match between Liverpool and Middlesbrough at Anfield on May 21, 2017 in Liverpool, England.
Image credit: Getty Images
Klopp’s Liverpool are about chemistry, which can seem indefinable in its absence and beguilingly brilliant when it is present. They have surprised for better and worse, entertained and excelled, confounded and contrived to end Arsenal’s unbroken two-decade stint as top-four finishers and ended with something tangible to reflect their efforts.
“If you are second, you are nothing,” Bill Shankly famously said. But that was then and this now. Liverpool are fourth and it is something. In the context of a history containing 18 league titles and five European Cups, it is not greatness. But it is a start. Liverpool are back where they belong, and deservedly so.
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article
Advertisement
Advertisement