Liverpool’s entrance to the 2015-16 season is akin to strolling into a party feeling uber confident, flashing the ol’ point and wink moments before kicking the coffee table and stumbling onto the couch .
Aye, the toboggan wasn’t all your fault. The mate you paraded in with was Brendan Rodgers. He nudged you, causing your path to deviate into the coffee table. The owner of the house witnessed this action, and politely showed Rodgers the door.
All the while during your dissent, on the couch you’re about to plunge ungracefully onto, there is a handsome, charismatic German man that you’ve always admired from a distance. Well, fitting the man’s magnetic personality, he slides over to catch you as you fall, saving you from the immediate peril of a cheap couch offering the illusion of comfortability. He gently brings you to your feet, opens a wide smile and says: “Hallo, my name is Jurgen.”
Liverpool fans have all the faith in the world that Jurgen Klopp can catch his new side’s fall from form and stick them upright. If the Premier League is the autobahn where Manuel Pelligrini and Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho are wheeling sports cars as the Liverpool clown car has made a pit stop to swap drivers, the Europa League is the less frequented route from English mediocrity towards the glamorous Champions League border control.
The clown car Liverpool fans have been hopelessly scrutinising hasn’t ruined the team’s chances of advancing through the Champions League’s unimpressive and annoying cousin. Far from it, as well.
Liverpool sit level with Bordeaux in second with two points after two match days, trailing surprise leaders FC Sion, who are on four points. Behind Liverpool and Bordeaux is Rubin Kazan who have one point. There’s all still to play for, for all teams in Europa League Group B.
Obviously Klopp is inheriting a side that isn’t in the most optimal position, but such is life when you are granted control of a football club mid-season. But Liverpool can still – easily – top this pedestrian group and advancing through this competition could prove to be the Reds’ best chance at securing Champions League status for 2016-17.
That thought process has plagued most fans of all teams who are on the outside looking in for the Champions League, though. Why are we more concerned with participating in a tournament than we are winning something? The Europa League is a chance at silverware, damnit!
Instead of peering through the lens of pessimism and holding the opinion that the Europa League is a comparative waste of time clogging the fixture list, have a look from the other end: another chance for a magical cup run. Is there any fan who doesn’t want to watch Klopp on the sideline of a knockout round match, let alone a cup final? I feel the tingling already.
Klopp proved at Dortmund that he loves a cup run as his sides regularly progressed through the DFK Pokal (German Cup for those who’re unaware) and the Champions League knockout rounds against Europe’s elite (and English clubs).
Conversely, Liverpool fans are primed and ready for all the hope that comes from a cup run. Of course, Rodgers had bottom line success in advancing to the semi-final of both the League and FA Cups last season but those hardly felt convincing nor impressive, as Liverpool regularly laboured and limped passed inferior opponents at Anfield.
Liverpool’s Europa League match on Thursday against Rubin Kazan is the inception of Klopp flags at Anfield, and it’s an important match. If they fail to win, the group stage gets that much more difficult and supremely limits their chances of topping the group.
A win, a foreign concept to Liverpool fans of late, would set them up wonderfully at the halfway mark of the group stages. They’ll have gained five points and be in control of their own destiny for first-place, which is all that can be asked at this point.
Klopp must decide how to approach these matches. Should he rotate the squad to give fringe and youth players chances as Rodgers did? Or will he play his first XI and further the risk of injury and fatigue come the weekend in the league?
Against Tottenham, Klopp didn’t have too many line-up choices to make with so many first-team regulars out of the squad due to injuries, thus rendering his first Europa League match in charge a bit easier as he won’t have too many decisions to make.
Christian Benteke, Roberto Firmino and Daniel Sturridge are all expected full participants in training and all will need match time under Klopp as well as the boss wanting to see them perform for him in a real match. So, this week against Kazan, Liverpool may nearly be forced to field a strong XI which could make the rest of their European campaign easier if he assembles that strong team and they win. Winning is the world’s best deodorant and mask. It makes rotating the team in the future easier and more defendable while giving the team more room for error.
If Klopp had been in charge for more than one match, Thursday night might have the makings of a relative must-win. Alas, he’s new, alleviating some pressure for a result, relinquishing some tension and apprehension that might have been surrounding the night which should work in favour for Klopp’s Anfield debut.
Liverpool fans should, and hopefully will, be patient with Klopp’s Liverpool. As he’s had to disclaim in his press conferences, he’s not Jesus Klopp. He cannot walk on water. He’s just Jurgen, “the normal one.”
Now close your mouth, it’s been a little bit/way too long since he caught you on the couch and introduced himself, knowing damn well you’re aware of his identity.
Embrace it, enjoy it. Say hello, thank him for his kindness. Hang out a bit, let’s see where this journey takes everyone involved.
One day, Liverpool fans will accompany Klopp on the autobahn as we pass Pelligrini, Wenger and Mourinho in our embraced and revamped clown car.
Go on then.
