Waitrose front five and Lidl back six..and Klopp magic is fooling no one

IT is time for serious questions to be asked about Jurgen Klopp. I expected more from him and Liverpool after two years.

I’m afraid to say he is a bit like a snake-oil salesman.

Somebody who comes into the middle of a market saying buy this amazing potion or lotion and it will do this and that. He came in talking about fast-paced, rock ‘n’ roll football, with a smile on his face and it has now worn off for a lot of people. It is not good enough now to go into every press conference and smile and laugh as if you’ve won six games on the bounce.

The owners, Fenway Sports Group, have given him decent funds to spend. But they didn’t have a plan B, C or D after not getting Virgil van Dijk.

Instead of giving Dejan Lovren a five-year contract he had the opportunity to ship him out and send a message to everybody, ‘There are standards which if you don’t meet you’re out the door, regardless of how much you cost or your pedigree.’

But instead he has rewarded failure. He has stuck with left-back Alberto Moreno way beyond what he should have done to get the few decent games out of him more recently.

And his goalkeepers, if they were playing in the Championship, wouldn’t be on the radar of any of the Premier League’s top six clubs, perhaps even top 10.

So often we talk about Arsenal lacking leaders but Liverpool, arguably, are as rudderless as the Gunners.

Liverpool have a lot of nice boys, the type you’d be happy for your daughter to bring home. But there is nobody there who is a Steven Gerrard or a Roy Keane, who has spite about them and will make sure they dominate games.

A lot of that goes down to Jordan Henderson. I have the utmost respect for him as a professional footballer. He is a model pro. A good man. Solid, dependable, a very good club ambassador. But he is not a Liverpool captain. I remember him scoring a worldie against Chelsea and people were saying, ‘There you go Collymore, that’s what Sign up to listen to Call Collymore through Stan’s new app at www.collymore.com he does, that’s stuck it to you.’ But once in a season? Like his assist for Mo Salah’s goal against Spurs, these moments pop up once every 15 or 20 games.

He is not a defensive midfielder. He doesn’t protect the house.

He is not a great attacking midfielder. He spends most of his time passing the ball sideways or backwards.

So what is he in the team for and why is he captain? The answers are quite clear. Because he is a nice lad, he can be the face of their advertising campaigns because he sells the brand well and he has handled not being Gerrard quite well. I wouldn’t be convinced Brendan Rodgers couldn’t have done what Klopp has and there has not been any progress in the consistency of the team from the Rodgers era. The best Liverpool can get is the top four. Because of their defence, their attack is having to score two, three or four to even be on par and that puts big pressure on their attacking players and has a corrosive impact. That needs rectifying in double-quick time. There is a major problem with that team from midfield going backwards. There is no criticism of the front four or five. Liverpool have got a Waitrose front five and a Lidl back six. And that is no disrespect to either of those fine supermarkets.