Nowhere does the cult of the manager seem bigger than at Liverpool.
From the day Bill Shankly’s booming Scottish voice first echoed round Anfield, it became ingrained into the club’s DNA. Some managers have harnessed this intense focus, channelled it and used it like the blade of a knife.
Others, like Roy Hodgson, were never afforded this cult status. He hadn’t walked the walk, he couldn’t talk the talk, and Liverpudlians saw right through him.
When Fenway Sports Group (FSG) appointed Jurgen Klopp in 2016, fans all over the world rejoiced. He ticked all the boxes; charismatic, passionate, a man of the people whose pedigree spoke for itself. It seemed a perfect fit, but in truth, up to now, it’s been far from perfect so far.
The last decade hasn’t been kind to Liverpool with false dawns, tragic slips and final failures causing the fire in the fan base to dim but not quite die. It’s now 17 months since Klopp’s arrival and expectations off the pitch are leagues away from what we’ve been seeing on it, with the 3-1 drubbing at Leicester adding to what has been a disastrous calendar year so far, the only person watching who seemed surprised by the display was the manager.
So what has gone wrong?
I think you’ve got to start in the summer when a massive clear out of deadwood and a moderate influx of new faces left the squad lacking in key areas. This meant we started the season with an ageing midfielder at left back, we were short of a reliable goal scorer and there were question marks over Dejan Lovren’s quality and the fitness of captain Jordan Henderson.
It was a real risk starting the season with so many doubts but this was all initially masked by a blistering start. In truth, this Liverpool side lost its consistency in early December and we haven’t seen it since.
One of the rising issues fans have is the amount of money our Boston-based owners are willing to pay to compete with the best. A negative summer net spend is hardly the mark of potential champions, or even a side serious about breaking back into the top four.
The manager stated more than once that he was happy with his squad and that he had funds should he need them. However, when January came around, apparently there wasn’t a single deal we could have done to improve a flagging, injury hit side. I don’t know what is more worrying, that Klopp perhaps couldn’t see that some of his players weren’t up to the required standard or the prospect that the owners wouldn’t provide the funds for players he may have asked for.
Back to the present day, serious questions still need to be asked over FSG’s running of the club. Commercial deals are all well and good but their tenure has been littered with poor decisions. They are not football men by their own admission and maybe it’s time to find someone who knows the game to run the club. They earned big praise when opening the new main stand, but in truth it’s a medium term fix aimed solely at corporate customers, what happened to the mega naming rights deal which would cover much of the cost for redevelopment?
Plans for the Anfield Road end have now gone quiet and the tens of millions they wrote off by scrapping the Stanley Park stadium plans seem largely forgotten. Sure, one new stand is good, but what about the rest of the stadium?
Cramped seating, restrictive views and basic amenities are not the mark of an elite club. With Chelsea, Spurs and even Everton building new stadiums, we could be playing catch up again in a few years. Although the clubs plans for a new training complex are welcome, it feels like priorities are back to front. When they first bought the club, they promised to ‘under-promise and over-deliver’ but one new stand and a solitary League Cup in the seven years that have followed doesn’t quite match their pledge.
On the pitch, the chasing pack for Champions League qualification have caught up. Manchester United wish push Liverpool into 6th place should they win their game in hand.
As a fan, it’s hard to see a winning run at the moment and the total shock on Klopp’s face in his post match interview at Leicester spoke volumes.
Perhaps the penny has finally dropped over some of his players, but with such a lack of alternatives in the squad, we could be in for a long run in.
