Jurgen Klopp needs a trophy at Liverpool

Jurgen Klopp is still without a trophy during his Liverpool reign but his third full season has yielded success in his previous jobs. Adam Bate examines why there is good reason for Klopp to be particularly optimistic going into the campaign.

“If we sit here in four years, I think we win one title.” Those were the words of Jurgen Klopp in his very first press conference as Liverpool manager in October 2015. Something may have been lost in translation – title can refer to a trophy of any kind rather than the league championship – but this season is still the last chance for him to deliver on his prediction.

Liverpool have gone close. There was a League Cup final within months of him taking over and a Europa League final that year too. In May, Klopp took the club to the Champions League final only to come up short against Real Madrid. His Liverpool have thrilled fans and entertained everyone else with their fast-paced football. Only silverware has eluded him.

Jose Mourinho is acutely aware of this fact. In the wake of Liverpool’s summer spending, the Manchester United boss did not waste the chance to ramp up the pressure on his rival. “Maybe this season finally you demand that they win,” he told the media. “I think you have to be fair and now you have to demand.” It was typical Mourinho but he’s got a point.

The good news for Klopp is that while it is at this point that Mourinho’s machinations can grate and the project begins to unravel, history suggests that the third full season is the one in which the German enjoys unprecedented success. It was at this stage that he took Mainz into the Bundesliga for the first time. With Borussia Dortmund, he won the thing.

Could history repeat itself with Liverpool? There have been enough windows now for Klopp to reshape the squad into one that can implement his ideas and there is a growing sense that the players are attuned to his style. It is fifteen months since Liverpool last lost a Premier League game at Anfield. The team now knows what he wants but it has taken time.

It was after the 4-3 win at Arsenal on the opening weekend of his first full season in charge that Klopp highlighted the problem. For the first goal, Liverpool lost the ball in their own half and gave Alex Iwobi time to pick out Theo Walcott, unmarked, on the edge of the box. Klopp insisted afterwards that they had spent two hours in training working out precisely how to stop this sort of thing from happening. The issue was that it was not instinctive.

“What we need is for the decision to be made here not here,” he explained, pointing to his gut, then his head. “We are in the head right now. Time together will help. So will experience together, success and good results.” Gesticulating to his gut once more, he added: “At some point it will be here and then we can use it more easily.”

Repetition is the key. The now departed Philippe Coutinho told a tale of how he had worked long and hard on a routine where they would play three short passes before switching the play with a longer pass. To the untrained eye it might have looked like chaos but there was method to the Klopp madness. Even the heaviest of metal bands spend time in the studio.

Coutinho saw it as an attempt to “tap into the perfect mental state to be creative” and that was confirmed by coach Pep Lijnders, the Dutchman who has since returned for a second stint as first-team coach. The reason for the repetition, says Lijnders, is not because Klopp wants his players to become mechanical in their movements. He wants it to feel natural.

 

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