Klopp: A director of fearless, front-foot theatre

DON’T worry about the two late goals Roma pulled back at Anfield on Tuesday. Liverpool are in the Champions League final. Simple as that.

They will be a bit jittery in the return leg on Wednesday, even with their 5-2 lead, and their hosts will definitely come out firing, just as they did against Barcelona in the quarter-finals.

But the Red men usually score and as soon as they get one, which they will, the task becomes impossible for the Italians.

Liverpool will get their comfort blanket of a goal, and after such a superb performance last week I can’t see anything now other than a repeat of the 1981 final when my old club took on Real Madrid.

Liverpool’s display against Roma was a blitz.

Jurgen Klopp’s side just go out and play without fear, and finally they seem to have a defensive unit which believes it can keep clean sheets for the most part as well.

They are a joy to watch, and the fact that James Milner has recorded the highest number of assists in a Champions League season is mind- boggling. It’s front-foot football, and I give Klopp much kudos for that.

His fundamental philosophy for his players is, ‘Go and express yourselves, go and enjoy it’, and I love that about him. You can see the players do, too. They love being on the front foot.

They love being aggressive and expressive – and collectively they are reaping the rewards.

Of course, even though the defence is much improved since Virgil van Dijk arrived, there remains that little minus point at the back.

And if Liverpool were to lose in the final then some people will repeat what was said about Klopp when he was at Borussia Dortmund.

They will say that he produces great attacking teams – but he doesn’t quite get there in terms of producing the best all-round sides. I have questioned that about him in the past as well, but since January no one can argue there has been an improvement in that respect. Now, if Klopp can just polish his in-game management, adding a little bit of refinement to be able to keep the ball, then he can go on and do whatever he wants in the game. Against Roma, he took off the man of the moment, or rather man of the season – Mo Salah – and perhaps that was a mistake. The work Salah does up front keeps the pressure off the defence for one thing. And as it was an active semi-final in a competition that is as good as it’s going to get for Liverpool this season, really there was no point saving him for something else. I get that at 5-0 up you might think, ‘Let’s rest his legs a little bit’. But if I WORRY that violence could overshadow Wednesday’s game in Rome, which is the third most dangerous place I have been to watch football, behind Naples and Marseille. The Eternal City has all those little alleyways, and lots of places you can get ambushed. If you get caught up with a scarf on you are going to get in a lot of bother. The Foreign Office should introduce a trafficlight style warning system for travelling fans. Rome is a red. that comes at the risk of conceding two goals compared to the reward of maybe finishing the game with a 6-0 advantage then I would argue that the choice between taking Salah off and leaving him on is an obvious one.

But what I will also say, and it applies to all football teams, is they can never have everything.

And to ask much more of Klopp at this stage would be to ask for perfection itself.

That said, his side can still learn to keep the door shut a bit better, and lose that little bit of naivety that will let a team like Roma back in when they were dead and buried in a tie, stunned and blitzed.

The bigger picture of last Tuesday was that Liverpool were sensational, and Klopp has the Anfield faithful wondering where all this is going to end. How far can this side go?

How ever far that proves to be, the one thing for the players is that they are now working for a club with a support and infrastructure that is based around Liverpool being present at Europe’s top table – and long may that continue.