Klopp remains untouchable but how long will that last?

LIVERPOOL are officially out of excuses. This is no longer about their parade of injured centre-backs, or about their struggles to adapt to a silent Kop, or about the headshaking dejection of Mohamed Salah as his agent sends cryptic messages about his future. This is the moment when the champions, the obsessive curators of Anfield’s mystique, must somehow compute the fact that they have just lost six home league matches in a row.

It is a sequence so starkly at odds with their recent past that it suggests not ill-fortune, or individual carelessness, but a wholesale disengagement from the cause. And the only man who can take responsibility for this, inconveniently for his helpless devotees, is Jurgen Klopp.

“Let’s talk about six,” Klopp (below) once crowed, showing his weakness for ’90s pop, as he basked in Liverpool’s sixth European Cup triumph. A little over 21 months on, it is unlikely he would invite the same talk today.

For a sixth successive home defeat, a sequence of unparalleled wretchedness for any reigning topflight title-holders, is one that casts an unflattering light on his leadership. It was Fulham’s Harrison Reed who twisted the knife, observing that he and his relegationthreatened team-mates had “wanted it more”. While drop-offs in skill or concentration can be blamed on the players, an appetite for victory is a quality imparted directly by the manager.

It is now eight home games without a win for Liverpool. Only once, in 1951-’52, have they had a longer top-flight drought. Throughout his career, Klopp has made the relentlessness of his players a matter of almost paternal pride.

But there can no longer be any doubt that Liverpool’s wobble has, under his command, deepened into a serious tailspin. A mere six and a half weeks ago, his record invited awe across the game, as he approached four years unbeaten at home. Now, it is the subject of incredulity.

Four consecutive league losses at Anfield was abject enough, a run not witnessed at the club for 97 years. Six takes Liverpool into territory they would rather not contemplate, begging as it does the question of whether Klopp can survive.

Ignored

Owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) have ignored any such debate, with Klopp insisting that he was the man entrusted to arrest the slump. Consider, though, how his latest results would have worked out for the managers of Liverpool’s rivals. Roman Abramovich, one senses, would not think twice about pressing the eject button at Chelsea in these circumstances. For all the melodrama around how he dispensed with Frank Lampard, he set the gold standard for ruthlessness when he sacked Carlo Ancelotti only a year after the Italian had wrapped up the double. Jose Mourinho found that historically brilliant home form afforded no protection from the Russian’s impulsiveness. He did not lose a league game at Stamford Bridge for over three years and still wound up being fired twice. Glory buys you time, but rarely an indefinite amount.

Claudio Ranieri discovered this the hard way when he was let go by Leicester just nine months after leading them to the Premier League’s greatest moment, and one of the most improbable titles in the history of English football.

It is now nine months since Klopp steered Liverpool to their first championship for 30 years, but so far, the honeymoon is holding firm. The issue is whether this special dispensation is deserved. The German’s admirers could point to the fact that his decline has been less severe: Leicester were 17th when they dispatched Ranieri, while Liverpool are seventh. But at the rate his team are unravelling, FSG’s clemency will not last forever.

There are two particular concerns as Klopp toils to turn the corner. The first is that his capacity for rebounding from adversity is anything but a given.

While he was adored at Mainz for inspiring the Rhineland club’s first promotion to the Bundesliga in 2004, he oversaw their relegation three seasons later and could not guide them back.

The regression at Borussia Dortmund on his watch was similarly severe, as the team spiralled from a maiden Champions League final in May 2013 to the Bundesliga relegation zone by December 2014.

The second worry is that Liverpool’s inferiority is by no means marginal.

They were well-beaten by Fulham, just as they were by Burnley and Brighton, opponents of whom they should easily have had the measure.

Klopp has endured a time of deep personal anguish of late, with the death of his mother and his inability to attend the funeral. But the demands of his trade are remorseless.

If he is not already under pressure, Liverpool’s implosion is on a scale to ensure that he soon will be. (© Telegraph Media Group Limited 2021)