The Premier League is not just a place of intricate football and smooth passing play; some games are not easy on the eye and Klopp’s going to need warriors if Liverpool truly want to win the battle.
Anfield has waited too long for a Premier League title and it’s not as if they haven’t been close, they just need to refine a few things.
At one point it seemed Brendan Rodgers would deliver the much sought-after prize, but his side fell short of a star-studded Manchester City. Much has been said about that Liverpool team, whether it be personal mistakes or collective errors that kept cropping up, ultimately allowing the title to slip out of their hands.
However, there was a much more fundamental issue for Liverpool and it’s been an issue for a few years now: the ability to close out a game.
If you take a look at the teams that have won the Premier League, the likes of Arsenal when they were invincible, Chelsea under Carlo Ancelotti and Jose Mourinho and, of course, the dominant Manchester United sides that have steered their way to league success on multiple occasions, they all had a certain ingredient – physical presence.
The emphatic 2003-04 Arsenal team had Jens Lehmann, Patrick Vieira, Gilberto Silva, Sol Campbell, Thierry Henry, Robert Pires, Dennis Bergkamp – big players in stature and Arsene Wenger positioned them in a way that made them so difficult to beat. Their presence made breaking them down an arduous task, they were also quick on the counter attack with Freddie Ljungberg, Ashley Cole, Lauren and Sylvain Wiltord – this is a winning formula.
Many clubs have modelled themselves on successful teams abroad in recent years, and even Rodgers’ tenure was overshadowed by the manager’s obsession with a Barcelona style of play. This seems to be a trend; English clubs think they have to choose between playing out from the back or being a horrible side to break down – chalk and cheese – when in actual fact the best teams can play both ways.
Chelsea’s 2014-15 Premier League-winning team should be the model of every club in England. Every outing consisted of tight defensive organisation and the midfield was a wall not many could hop over to get in with a chance of scoring, and this paid in dividends.
That season for Jose was a testament to his success in the transfer market. Chelsea was very much a club in transition when Mourinho came back in 2013, with Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba departing Stamford Bridge. Voids of this size, in terms of character and quality, are very difficult to fill with like-for-like replacements so Chelsea took a different approach.
Instead of replacing Frank Lampard he signed Nemanja Matic and Cesc Fabregas, offering a presence in the centre of the park, complementing the hard-working counter-attacking players in Eden Hazard and Willian. Diego Costa pressed relentlessly in the final third and Chelsea adopted a very direct approach. It was direct in the respect that the midfield would zip the ball to the attackers at every opportunity and winning it back in a magnetic and bullish fashion. They would beat teams on their own terms, selecting when to move forward and dispatching their Premier League rivals with ease.
Not many Liverpool supporters are huge fans of Jose Mourinho for one reason or another, but a real footballing fan will understand how good his team was and would like to see their team play at that same level. Jurgen Klopp has the potential to deliver that aggressive style to Anfield.
Klopp made his name for himself in football management as a result of his success at Borussia Dortmund. That team was built like a brick wall, engines all over the park and offered an astonishing pressing game that teams just couldn’t cope with. His Dortmund outfit scooped the Bundesliga title twice and reached the Champions League final in 2013. Very impressive considering the financial dominance of Bayern Munich.
Now, already at Liverpool, we’ve spotted signs of Klopp’s pressing game imposed on the squad and even some of the younger boys such as Brad Smith and Connor Randall are starting to impress. However, injuries have cut the squad down to the bare minimum of late, making this an opportune time to invest in players.
Already in this transfer window, the Reds have secured the signing of Marko Grujic from Red Star Belgrade, costing a reported £5.1m. The 19-year old stands 6ft 3in, and given the success of players from that region (Croatia/Serbia) in recent years, he could prove to be a shrewd buy.
A war isn’t won in a day but with the right recruitment, there is no doubt that Klopp could bring the glory days back to this success-starved club.
The current crop of Liverpool midfielders don’t contribute enough to compete. Let’s just glance over them: Joe Allen, Lucas Leiva, Jordan Henderson, Emre Can, James Milner, Philippe Coutinho, Roberto Firmino and Adam Lallana – there’s not enough goals in that midfield, not enough leaders in there and certainly not enough quality to be competing on the highest level, especially from a defensive standpoint.
Jurgen is going to have to sign a group of players that will buy into his philosophy, keep working with the players Liverpool have heavily invested in and build a club where they find talent, buy talent and crucially: keep talent.
