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TT seems to be dying a slow death. It’s going through periods now where nobody can log in. If they don’t start picking up the pieces soon, the exodus will continue and that will be that.
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Paxton, not sure whether it’s arrogance or naivety.
I think the recent window just gone showed a huge lack of leadership from both owner and manager, but particularly manager. I don’t think there was a strong enough plan to do what we needed to do over summer, not just over the areas of particular weakness, but also over Coutinho.
I think Klopp is a passionate good coach in the dressing room, but when it comes to more business matters, I think he’s more ‘laissez faire’ and too easy going. In some ways, I think his positivity sometimes gets the better of him. When we didn’t sign the players he wanted, it appears he just shrugged his shoulders and got on with it, only trying to look at the positives as opposed to the negatives. Admirable one might say. But you have to be ruthless in this game, and I think he should have stood up a lot more for what he wanted (assuming he didn’t).
Take Coutinho. It was rumoured that Klopp actually would have accepted his departure but it was the owners who, still aggrieved over Barcelona’s handling of Suarez, put their foot down and said “never again!”. Now if that was the case, I think Klopp should have had more conviction over what he wanted, and put it to the owners in the strongest possible terms. I’m not going to absolutely lay into FSG over this – they are clearly inexperienced with the European game. Hence even more need for Klopp to tell them how it is. Either way, whatever did happen behind closed doors, we were left with a far from ideal situation – over Coutinho, VVD, and a shortage of players in other key areas. People might say it’s good we’ve still got Coutinho – but I still think all we’ve done, like Saints have over VVD, is delay the inevitable somewhat. And even if not, it will take some time for those players to pick up the pieces from where they left off. I think there’s an element of both clubs cutting off their nose to spite their face and it was completely unnecessary. And as for other players that we needed, Klopp again should have demanded more options from the club – but instead we get this – “it’s all about coaching what we have now and developing the togetherness”. This is all no doubt important, but it’s all a bit too idealistic for me, and it could actually lead to putting a lot more pressure on Klopp than he needed. Now I’m by no means saying we’ll have a disastrous season, but it could put increased pressure on Klopp, pressure he could well do without. In short, should Klopp have been more ruthless here? Is he too “nice”??
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It’s a fair point NB. In some ways you could argue the whole aim of trying to get us where we want to be is an impossible one. On one hand you need a long term continuity and stability there, on the other you have to build quickly in order to make yourself attractive to the best players. On the surface these two factors may seem to run counter to each other. But these would be my thoughts:
If I was in charge I’d do several things. I’d invest in not just the academy but the city itself, ploughing money into schools and facilities throughout the city and region – granted it wouldn’t be cheap – though look at some of the big money we’ve blown in the transfer window so easily. We should never underestimate the local ‘heart’ importance that a club needs. It may obviously have the added bonus of helping some of the more deprived areas. This would obviously be a long term strategy.
Secondly, I’d invest more in the scouts and recruitment department – targeting the Southampton scouts probably wouldn’t be a bad start π I’d obviously avoid the debacle of a political style transfer committee, though I would set it up to try and promote as much dialogue between the scouts and manager as possible so that the manager (who had final say) was ultimately persuaded as opposed to forced to have a player landed on him. You’d build up a healthier and more productive relationship that way. I’d also ensure that as much due diligence was completed by the club as possible when weighing up whether to move for him – using both stats and old fashioned judgement. This would be more of a short – long term strategy.
The above two strategies would give the club a firmer, stronger foundation for the future and in some ways would take care of some of the short term problems regarding building as quickly as possible – imagine if Klopp had an array of great options every time he sought a player. (Granted who to blame is for not looking for alternative players in the window just gone is unknown – was Klopp happy with what he had or did the club not give him many options?) Now it might well be that the club is already doing some elements of all this and granted it can take time for some of this to develop. I am just very wary of not making the most of the hard work we keep doing getting say into the top 4 (like under Rodgers) but then not capitalising on it through poor transfers and ultimately falling back down the ladder. As mentioned in my first post above, such failures then put an added pressure on us – particularly the manager, that really sets us back. Until we fully resolve this, I think we’ll always struggle to get over that line we so want to cross.
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Thing is, in today’s climate new managers generally need to deliver by season 2/3. As soon as a club’s stock is high, they need to strike whilst the iron is hot and bring in ‘life changing’ players. The longer Klopp goes without any tangible success, the more the pressure will mount and ultimately get to him. We’ve seen it time and time again with our previous managers who are mentally exhausted by the time the supposed 4/5 year plan is due to come to fruition. Last summer Chelsea snapped up Kante & Luiz, two players that had a huge impact on their success last season. We were close to bringing in our own Kante & Luiz in Keita & VVD this summer. We messed up on the latter and have secured the former but for next season – that’s all good and well, but it’s invited more pressure on Klopp to deliver with a somewhat limited squad that lacks any real leaders. We may still see success in the longer term, but we’ve certainly missed an opportunity this summer to reduce the pressure on us.
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Concern for Liverpool under Klopp so far is this: when the players are all up for it, there are few better sides around. However, because much of the defensive side of the game uses all 11 players with pressing, it only takes a few of them to not perform for the plan to come apart (like some of the dropped heads after ManΓ©’s sending off). Hence I don’t see VVD as being the silver bullet – rather an all rounder like Keita would have had a bigger impact today IMO. Until he comes in, losses like that seen today will always be possible.
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Yeh Banjo the purist will say it’s a 50-50 ball there to be won by any means as long as you go for the ball or others will say that players should be aware of the potential consequences of such actions and adapt accordingly in those situations. I certainly sympathise with the latter point.
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Wonder if the dangerous play came into the decision there from UEFA – was Evra not sent off in a CL game a few seasons ago for trying to pluck the ball out of the air with a high foot as the opposition midfielder came in? We’re edging towards a non contact game if so.
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Whilst some of the focus has moved ever more to club football, I think many fans do still care, and I’m not sure I subscribe that this mass moaning of international football actually reflects reality. I think as Paxton has touched on – fans are merely sick of underperforming England teams with players that seem half interested at times. The last real excitement for me over an England team was Euro 96. Why? Not just because we made the latter stages, but because you could see the players were so up for it, and there was an actual plan. Obviously the premier league didn’t then dominate the way it does now, but I think that’s a more secondary reason. I think a lot comes from the manager, and for the last two decades we have generally installed managers who are more idealistic & safe than pragmatic (as seen when they have picked the best XI vs the most effective XI). But not just, there’s simply hasn’t been any charisma about the managers – in most of our games I generally see a negative plan whereby we are only bailed out by individual brilliance – this is exactly what happened the other night – we needed the brilliance of Diers flick to get the ball rolling and then the brilliance of Rashford to seal it. When was the last time we saw a real England team goal because of a positive coherent plan from a manager? You just don’t see it. You just tend to see players increasingly frustrated, ending with them resorting to pot shots around the box. Imagine what a Klopp type figure could do for England.
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Nothing ever changes with England. We’ve always looked like a team of individuals that’s just met each other and we get schooled by other much less established football nations.
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He basically sits in the Henderson position doesn’t he? But looks more comfortable in possession, can spray the ball out, can dribble with the ball out, scores goals but is willing to track back and likes a tackle. Finally close to replacing Stevie??
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Success should be determined on how well the players bought fit into the system together with the quality of that player. As you say Ed, Mourinho has his Matic back – that was a huge huge signing for him and it now looks like the Mourinho service is starting to resume.
I think, whilst it may be disappointing that Liverpool couldn’t bring in a CB, Keita would have been a bigger signing because he would have a bigger impact on a Klopp team – being like an insurance policy like Kante, who would bail us out of all sorts of situations – important for a open side like Klopp’s. At least he’s in the bank for next summer. Liverpool’s dip in form last year coincided not so much with the loss of defensive players but attacking ones – when they lost ManΓ© & had an out of form Coutinho that’s when they struggled – as soon as Coutinho came back into form, they lost just 1 of the last 12 league games. They’ve strengthened those positions with Salah & the Ox. So all in all, not too bad a window.
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HH, interesting one, though as the posters have said above, Klopp said 100% that Mignolet will start vs Man City, so I’d be somewhat surprised if he now gets sold this week. What I would say is that with Klopp now very much building the side in his image, i.e. high energy workaholics – ManΓ©, Firmino, Salah, Lallana, Henderson, etc the team is somewhat falling into two camps, Klopp type players and non Klopp type players. What further exacerbates that is Klopp’s tough training programme which you sense his type players love, whilst the others don’t quite love so much. That’s not to say all the non type players will suddenly leave in one big exodus; it will be more gradual. But I do expect deadline day to be a busy one, and I think there may be some surprise moves both ways.
As regards Coutinho the question mark obviously lingers on. Had we already bought VVD & Keita for Β£140 mill, but clawed back Β£130 mill on Coutinho, it would most probably be deemed outstanding business in Klopp’s head and I suspect he’d take that scenario now if it was possible.
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Gary Neville, “Karius keeps walking into the same glass door.” That really tickled me.
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I agree with Banjo, particularly if Liverpool are able to bring in some other attacking players in the coming 10 days – Barca might have another go – their pursuit of Coutinho is over just as Liverpool’s pursuit of VVD is over π
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That makes some sense Beni and would correlate with what we’ve seen so far. Also I think Firmino is more important to Klopp than Coutinho. Be an interesting two weeks.
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Whilst on the surface the club appear to be standing very firm on Coutinho, I would bear a few things in mind:
– The relationship between Klopp & Coutinho has allegedly been strained for the last 6 months.
– Klopp likes his players to be fully committed to the cause, not to mention he has his tough training regime, that not every player will love.
– Barcelona / Madrid is always the dream ticket for South American players, can Coutinho be sure the chance will come up again next year?
– During interviews Klopp is now immediately deflecting questions about Coutinho to the owners, saying it’s in their hands, not his, i.e. he seems to be distancing himself from Coutinho.
I think this will go down to the wire, I’d expect another bid from Barca. It could be a hell of a deadline day, with big business both ways.
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Is there not an element here of Chelsea wanting / needing to become more sustainable as a business? …hence if a big offer comes in, they find it too tempting not to take – maybe they subsequently put more hope and pressure on others to replace them.
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Thanks Ed.
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Kind of you to say HH – bit more slicker over here isn’t it?
Sorry I should perhaps have said *new* defensive coach (assuming we have one already). Either way, the next few weeks will be interesting to say the least.
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Thought I’d make the move over…
I think Klopp has clearly struggled with the physicality of the premier league, and he has bemoaned several times the aggressiveness of some teams during corners. However, I’m not sure he’ll resort to a defensive coach – I think he believes fundamentally that his way will work with the right type of players. Klopp is first and foremost a coach that builds on workrate and energy, hence the pursual of Keita, another high energy player. This is why in some ways I think a DM will be more important than a CB to Klopp (although there’s no doubt a better CB & leader at the back will of course help). Big question is, if Klopp can’t bring in his targets this summer, is he willing to find an alternative or will he be more picky over the players he brings in? – i.e. if he can’t find a player with such hunger & workrate attributes, will he just leave it? – it wouldn’t surprise me. Klopp is in the middle of rebuilding the team in his own image – that may trump many things.
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