Klopp could have walked on …instead he’s done a Fergie by building back better

PERHAPS some time next year, to mark the moment he celebrates a decade in charge at Liverpool, someone clever at the club could produce one of those time warp videos that shows Jurgen Klopp standing on the touchline, a constant while everything around him changes.

Anfield is much-altered since Klopp took over as Liverpool manager on October 8, 2015. The extended, updated, expanded Main Stand opened a year after his arrival and brought the stadium into the 21st century.

Until then, the stadium had a foot in the past. It was still a place redolent of Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley and all the glories they had overseen.

Klopp’s reign at Liverpool has taken in the club’s move from its old training ground at Melwood, another place synonymous with the past, a place that some of us remember bowling up to in the early 1990s when the players still had tea and toast for breakfast and kids used to perch on the wall that ran along Crown Road to watch their heroes coming and going. Just over three years ago, after 70 years at Melwood, Liverpool moved to a bold, impressive out-of-town new site, the AXA Training Centre in Kirkby.

At Anfield, more construction has remodelled the stand at the Anfield Road End and added to the feeling of grandeur at a stadium where the team have become a powerhouse of the game again.

That feeling of change, of evolution, has been mirrored on the pitch. There was a time, fairly recently, when many expected Klopp would leave Liverpool as the first great side he built on Merseyside — the side who reached three Champions League finals in five seasons, won the competition in 2019 and won the Premier League in 2020 — began to break up.

Klopp was widely seen as a manager who had a shelf-life at a club, a manager who ran the club with such a high level of intensity, who gave so much and demanded so much, who was as relentless as the team he had built, that he could not sustain that pace for much longer on Merseyside.

Many pointed to the fact his previous spells in management, at Mainz and Borussia Dortmund, had both ended after seven years, and when Liverpool endured a disappointing 2022-23 season, those same people nodded and predicted Klopp would soon be taking his leave of the club where he has been worshipped since he arrived.

Only the great ones in English football have been able to build more than one title-winning side. Only the great ones have the judgment and the ruthlessness and the man-management skills to move great players on and identify new ones to take their place.

We can put Alex Ferguson in that company, of course. He built three title-winning sides in his glorious reign at Old Trafford. And we can add Arsene Wenger at Arsenal to the list. And Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. And now Klopp (right) is vying to join them.

Because instead of walking away, instead of yielding to the seven-year itch, Klopp stayed at Liverpool. And instead of everything imploding around him, he has achieved what more limited managers have been unable to do and built a second superb side at Anfield with barely a beat in between.

Five of the famed Liverpool front six who started the Champions League final victory over Tottenham in 2019 have left the club. In Sunday’s team who swept past Bournemouth 4-0 to move five points clear at the top of the league, there was no Georginio Wijnaldum, no Sadio Mane, no Jordan Henderson, no Roberto Firmino and no Fabinho.

Each one, in their own way, was crucial to the success of that first great Klopp side. Henderson was the Duracell Bunny who was the engine of the team, its voice and its leader, Wijnaldum did much that went unseen, Fabinho was a brilliant holding midfielder, Mane was a wonderful foil for Firmino and Mo Salah, and Firmino was the brains who tied it all together.

It is a huge task to replace all them but Klopp has done it. Or, at least, he has made an impressive start. Liverpool may not win the title this season but even if they don’t they are going to go close. They have only lost one game all season. This is supposed to be a side in transition. It is only going to get better. There is an excitement building at Anfield because there is a sense that out of the ashes of the old team, Klopp has fashioned a new side to be excited about, a new team that is built around clever new signings and the elixir of youth.

For all the enthusiasm about the raw talent of Darwin Nunez and his vast potential, there is immense satisfaction about the way Klopp has encouraged Curtis Jones to emerge as a player of rare quality and influence in the Liverpool midfield.

Everyone knew Alexis Mac Allister was a class act when he arrived from Brighton, a World Cup winner with old-style Liverpool quality, technically brilliant, assured on the ball, willing to do any job for the team. His performance on the south coast was his best for Liverpool so far.

Luis Diaz is getting back to his best, Diogo Jota is a subtle player who reminds many of Firmino and, of course, Salah is still there, still one of the elite forwards in the Premier League, still a player who would get into any other side in the division or in the world.

Add to that the continuing presence of mainstays of Klopp’s first side, Alisson, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold, the blossoming of Conor Bradley in his first few appearances at right back, the maturing of Harvey Elliott and the promise of new signings such as Cody Gakpo, Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai and the future looks bright. The present looks bright, too. If we are still to talk about Liverpool as a team in transition, then transition rarely looked as good as this. With every new brick added to Anfield, with every game that passes, Klopp’s determination to stay the course and build anew swells with vindication.