Home comforts can’t offer safe refuge for Klopp
BAD SCHONBORN, a sleepy town 25 kilometres west of Hoffenheim’s home, is a place which gives Jurgen Klopp familiar comfort.
The setting was always his preferred base when travelling with Mainz and Borussia Dortmund, and where Liverpool arrived yesterday afternoon.
The place might well be recognisable but the problems now facing Klopp are anything but. They are frighteningly new.
One, he goes into tonight’s Champions League qualifying play- off worth a minimum of £13.3million without his ace in the pack, Philippe Coutinho. No resolution appears close after the refusal of last week’s transfer request in light of Barcelona’s persistent courting. Two, he arrived in Germany with serious questions over his coaching ability for the first time since taking this job. His defence did not stand up to scrutiny at Watford and the blame is being laid at his door.
Whether it was rehearsed defiance or wilful ignorance, Klopp genially manoeuvred the conversation and had locals laughing knowingly. Deflective and diversionary. ‘The board are 100 per cent clear on it (Coutinho). There is nothing else to say,’ he said.‘If they say they will bid then whatever, we don’t want it. Then it is a clear message.
‘We don’t want money, we want to invest in the team and have the best team because we have our aims and dreams. I have the player from August 31 at the latest, again, or when the back issue is sorted.’
Jordan Henderson effectively claimed the players should forget about him, too. For now, at least, given the enormity of tonight.
That was Coutinho addressed — Adam Lallana and Daniel Sturridge are back home too — but what of the calamity defending at Vicarage Road, where the basics were not adhered to?
‘Was I happy with the start of the game? No,’ Klopp added. ‘We had pre-season where it is clear how we want to defend.
‘In the end it is not fair. I don’t imagine many people wrote that we won 3-2 according to the rules but, like Manchester United last year, their goal was offside.
‘We can either allow the pressure on this game to increase to the extent that we cannot walk any more, or we try to enjoy this opportunity.’
Pressure mounts. Issues linger. And Hoffenheim’s 30-year- old manager Julian Nagelsmann, who Klopp described as a ‘young horse’ is looking to prey on them.
Klopp still takes issue with Hoffenheim’s spending which pipped his Mainz to promotion to the Bundesliga in 2008, comparing them to Paris Saint-Germain.
Then there was the suggestion that they are overly aggressive under Nagelsmann inside a stadium which holds just 5,000.
‘We talked shortly,’ said Nagelsmann, who shares an agent with Klopp. ‘We know Liverpool are the favourites. We know we can shock our opponent.
‘Everyone is really excited. But to talk about a dream… a dream can quickly become a nightmare.’
LIVERPOOL (probable, 4-3-3): Mignolet; Alexander-Arnold, Lovren, Matip, Moreno; Can, Henderson, Wijnaldum; Mane, Firmino, Salah.