KLOPP ADMITS WERNER U-TURN DOWN TO MONEY
JURGEN KLOPP has outlined football’s harsh economic landscape, insisting pay cuts and huge transfer fees cannot go hand in hand. Last week Timo Werner, a long-standing Liverpool target, agreed a move to Chelsea. They will trigger his £53million release clause with RB Leipzig and have finalised a long-term £200,000-a-week contract. Given the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, Liverpool were not willing to make such an investment in the Germany forward, 24, who would not have been a guaranteed starter. In an interview with Sky Germany, Klopp said it would be irresponsible to make big deals at present. ‘There are a lot of good players on this planet,’ Klopp said. ‘Timo Werner is a great player, Kai Havertz (Bayer Leverkusen) is a great player. Right time, opportunity — everything has to come together. Six or
TRENT Alexander-Arnold revealed this season that the furthest he had reached back into Liverpool’s history was to watch footage of the team managed by Gerard Houllier in 2000.
Nobody would suggest there is nothing to learn from Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Dietmar Hamann, but as we approach the resumption of play, Alexander-Arnold and his team-mates may wish to go back another decade.
It is the 1990 team Liverpool are about to eclipse. It only seems right that they should know about them.
Modern footballers can be hard to read. They have history at their fingertips. At the push of a button on an iPhone, all the footage is there, but very few bother.
At Manchester United, Patrice Evra wanted to learn about the Munich disaster. But that was talked about because it was unusual.
So at Liverpool over the coming weeks it is hoped Jurgen Klopp’s players are encouraged to watch a little of Barnes and Beardsley and Hansen.
Not just because history matters but because it will only serve to heighten the magnitude of what they are about to achieve. That Liverpool team — managed by Kenny Dalglish — was coming towards the end of something, even if they did not know it at the time.
Dalglish, worn down by the pressure and the emotional devastation of Hillsborough, was to resign midway through the following season.
This Liverpool side, on the other hand, are perhaps at the start of a journey. They will start next season as strong title favourites, for sure.
In 1990, though, Dalglish’s side were still capable of playing with a sweeping majesty entirely recognisable when viewed through the prism of how Klopp’s side play today. They worked hard out of possession and they broke with devastating directness and speed. Perhaps the stand-out performance of that era came two seasons earlier, Liverpool dismantling a talented Nottingham Forest side 5-0 at Anfield with football that was extraordinary even by modern standards.
By 1990, Barnes and Beardsley in particular remained potent. Liverpool beat Crystal Palace 9- 0 at home early in their final titlewinning season.
Barnes only scored one of those goals but ended the season with 28. He was not, of course, a traditional centre forward.
Football has changed a little in three decades but any Liverpool player watching the way Dalglish’s team played the game would recognise the classic principles — in the same way that it is easy to reach the conclusion that the current side is superior. Yes, the Anfield surface is better now and the rules of the game encourage attacking play. But Klopp’s team — from goalkeeper Alisson through Virgil van Dijk, two flying full backs, Fabinho and Sadio Mane — brings to the great stadium a consistency of brilliance we probably have to go further back than 30 years to match. Alexander-Arnold and his team-mates should judge for themselves, though. That is the point: they should have a look. This is a league title that will be clinched in an empty stadium and there is an unescapable sadness about that. But a league title won after a 30-year hiatus remains special and an appreciation of the players who did it the last time will only add to the lustre.