JURGEN KLOPP
Is it all just smoke and mirrors with Reds boss?
THE perception is that Jurgen Klopp has transformed Liverpool since he arrived at the club last October.
He’s taken them to two cup finals, overseen some fantastic performances and has struck up an instant connection with the fans.
Owners FSG liked what he’d done so much that they extended his sevenmonth-old contract and tied him to the club until 2022.
Liverpool and the 49-year-old German, it’s said, are perfect for each other.
The Kop loves a heart-on-the-sleeve manager. They respond to his charismatic personality. They crave someone who matches their passion for the club.
He’s Bill Shankly with glasses and a scruffy beard.
But when it comes down to actual facts, how much of what Klopp has done so far has been genuine progress, and how much has been little more than smoke and mirrors?
He took his team to North London yesterday. The last time they were in that neck of the woods, they scored four goals in 18 minutes to beat Arsenal at the Emirates.
Liverpool have become the most inconsistent team in the Premier League
The week before that, they stuffed another four past Barcelona just along the North Circular at Wembley.
Yet because this is a team just as capable of losing 2-0 against Burnley as it is to take apart Europe’s best, no-one could say with any degree of certainty how they’d do against Tottenham.
A point wasn’t a bad result. But under Klopp, Liverpool have become the most inconsistent team in the Premier League.
That’s why last season, despite twice putting three past Manchester City, winning convincingly at Chelsea, beating Everton 4-0 and being one of only two clubs to beat Leicester, Liverpool still finished eighth in the table, two positions below where they ended under Brendan Rodgers the previous season.
That was because they balanced the good with the bad, illustrated by the fact they lost at Newcastle, Swansea and Watford by an aggregate of 8-1.
They produced two classic European nights at Anfield, coming from behind to beat Borussia Dortmund and Villarreal,