Liverpool’s attempts to break the ice lack class
Jurgen Klopp risked his good reputation by opting for some sharp practice against Leicester, writes Oliver Brown
Usually, the secret to marginal gains, those dreaded postmillennial fads, is to be as surreptitious as possible. Change your mattress, reposition your bike’s water bottle, make sure you keep your floors white so you can spot any rogue particles of dust. But Jurgen Klopp, as befitting a proud purveyor of “heavy-metal football”, prefers a more brazen approach.
So, with Liverpool held to a 1-1 halftime scoreline by Leicester City, and with 45 minutes to decide whether their Premier League lead over Manchester City would be five points or seven, the club’s grounds staff took to the pitch for some military-grade ice removal. Except their efforts were concentrated, all too conspicuously, in one area.
The upshot was that while Liverpool attacked on a half-pitch manicured enough to pass muster at the Super Bowl, Leicester were left slipping and skating on Merseyside’s answer to Val d’Isere.
Klopp has shown wariness before of hidden menace in the elements. When Liverpool were bundled out of the FA Cup by Wolves, he claimed the wind had been a factor in disrupting his players’ first touch.
This time, after misfiring against Leicester, he was at pains to suggest his team had suffered just as much as the Foxes in the frigid conditions.
“It’s pretty difficult,” he said. “The team with the ball, with the possession, struggles more with it. That’s clear, because you have to speed up in the final third.”
This may be so but it is equally clear that Leicester were at a graver disadvantage each time they tried to counter. From Liverpool’s side, there is more than a hint of hypocrisy here.
In the aftermath of defeat by Manchester City at the Etihad, pundits on The Anfield Wrap podcast wasted little time in stoking a theory — soon shot down by Pep Guardiola — that the hosts had deliberately grown the grass longer to frustrate Liverpool’s fondness for fast passing.
A touch rich, perhaps, from a club that now thinks nothing of undertaking some mid-match gardening to gain an edge.
All season, and indeed ever since Klopp’s arrival, Liverpool have placed a premium on conducting their business the right way. They have perfected, to a greater degree than most football institutions have any right to expect, a clean image, amassing plaudits as much for their effervescent play as for the intelligence and eminent decency of their manager. Indeed, for a man now entering his 40th month in search of a trophy at Anfield, Klopp has had a longer combined honeymoon than Elizabeth Taylor.
In part, such patience is owed to his force of personality. But that patience can be tested by signs of skulduggery, such as allowing his groundsmen to clear only one half of ice. This, by any standard, is a sly manipulation of the odds.
Every manager, at some level, is searching for the latest form of competitive advantage. It is why Marcelo Bielsa, the master of covert operations at Leeds United, instructs a spy to prowl around the perimeter of Derby County’s training ground. “Why do I do it?” he asked. “Because I am stupid.” In other words, he always strives to know more, to push the envelope as far as he dares. There comes a point, though, when elaborate coaching manoeuvres risk compromising that nebulous notion known as “the spirit of the game”.
In football, such a spirit is often ill-defined. There is nothing like the same deference to officialdom as in cricket, or the same amount of tacitly-accepted etiquette. But one concept constantly invoked is “class”. And Liverpool’s crafty little ice-shifting display was the antithesis of class.
Alterations to playing conditions are nothing new. In the 1990s, John Beck, then Cambridge United manager, would order long grass to be grown in the corners so the ball could be held up. It was accepted then as part of the exotic tapestry of lowerleague football, much like the stories that Beck would also turn up the heating in the opposition dressing room to intolerable extremes, or provide oversweetened tea to impair the performances of rivals. But it is the type of deviousness that a club of Liverpool’s stature ought to be above.
It said much that about the only people to come out in Liverpool’s favour over “Ice-gate” belonged to a betting company specialising in guerrilla tactics.
“It’s kind of cynical,” wrote their representative. “But I admire it.”
Liverpool, for their part, have little time for any accusations of cynicism. Their position is that they focus resources on the Kop End during inclement weather, since the size of the stand creates a slight depression that causes water to accumulate. But in the Leicester game, there were plenty of staff who could have ensured that both halves were icefree. The fact that only one half was treated, and the other left like a winter wonderland, was, even the Liverpool Echo acknowledged, “gamesmanship”.
There are, it would appear, no rules against what Liverpool did to their playing surface. The ruse remains legal but still smacks of sharp practice, a move akin to rolling a cricket strip only at one end to assist a particular bowler.
One can only guess at the reaction if Bielsa had pulled such a stunt. And yet with Klopp in charge, it passes with scarcely a murmur of criticism.
When a furious Frank Lampard hit out at Bielsa’s antics, he said:
“If you talk about details and gaining advantages, great and good managers do that. But this one is over the line.” So, too, was Liverpool’s suspiciously half-hearted attempt at ice clearance. Perhaps for the first time, Klopp’s burnished halo has slipped.