Klopp can unlock Reds’ potential – despite what the knuckleheads may say
It started with a throw-in. After Liverpool had been pulled this way and that by Tottenham on a torturous late autumn afternoon at Wembley last season, Jürgen Klopp had two obvious moments to think about when conducting his autopsy.
It had been the first goal of four that set the mood, the goal where Dejan Lovren had seemed to forget that a game was going on around him in reacting slowly to Kieran Trippier’s quick pass. Simon Mignolet,
meanwhile, could have been accused of the opposite, for being too rash in deciding to race from his line even though he was never going to beat Harry Kane to the ball.
When under-fire individuals are at the centre of the story the wider picture narrows, especially if one of those individuals is as erratic as Lovren, someone who was substituted after just 31 minutes. Time had almost run out on Mignolet too. In the last eleven months, he has played just eleven games for Liverpool. The last was on New Years’ Day.
Amidst the debris, Klopp would inspect the crime scene forensically and in his conclusion would hand down a verdict of joint enterprise for the whole team, proceeding to probe his players about something he saw as a key issue. Who had been the first to react to a throw-in further back the pitch by Trippier?
Liverpool’s players had not been on their guard a month earlier when Sevilla scored an equaliser at Anfield. On that occasion, Emre Can did not sense the danger. From another one of those tricky throw-ins, Steven Nzonzi had space, suddenly Joaquín Correa was released and then, it was 2-2. Considering where Liverpool ended up in the Champions League, it is easy to forget the minutiae that contributed to struggles in the earliest stages of their campaign. In this case, it defined the outcome.
When Liverpool return to Wembley tomorrow, Klopp, of course, will have prepared for the fixture with a new member of staff. That staff member is a throw-in coach called Thomas Gronnemark, a Dane who admits his job is “totally the weirdest in the world.”
Considering what happened to Liverpool in their worst performance under Klopp (and Tottenham at Wembley was worse than their 5-0 defeat with ten men to Manchester City); considering too how Liverpool dominated Sevilla but ended up drawing, a result which might have otherwise got them back on track after the suffering at City but ended up being only the second match in a sequence of just one win in eight (or two in ten if you then include what happened at Tottenham), you realise why only a knucklehead or someone with an agenda would criticise a highly paid manager of the highest profile for being open minded enough to try something that may or may not just give his team the slightest of edges when it matters. Klopp is not the only manager to remind that “the tiny details count, sending you one way or another – sometimes dramatically.” On Friday he would recall Tottenham as being, “the kind of game that could have gone in this or another direction.”
It is easy to be stuffy when managers try new and unusual things. For Liverpool’s febrile and idiosyncratic supporter base, it should surely reassure that Klopp is considering every single aspect of the game as he attempts to improve the results of his team.
Gronnemark is a specialist and though the focus on his appointment has been on what he can offer Liverpool when taking throw-ins, he also brings with him an understanding of how to defend them. The skills are transferable because the issues of time and space are relevant in both acts. His presence might help speed up Liverpool’s play and not afford the breathers that opponents crave. This is a team that aims to suffocate and the speed at which they think and operate impacts success. Perhaps Liverpool’s efficiency at throw-ins – when both attacking and defending – will enable them to either win possession back or attack quicker than they did before.
Tottenham vs Liverpool has been billed as a fixture where the club that has spent the least (or nothing) faces the club that has spent the most. It is true that Liverpool have broken world record fees for a defender and then a goalkeeper since they last met at Wembley and yet, Klopp is not simply relying on transfers alone as he tries to move Liverpool forward. On the fields of Melwood, the instruction has been slightly different over the last six weeks. Liverpool’s forward line, once a narrowish front three has been learning change despite it being a combination that has 12 months of devastating results behind them. In Liverpool’s four games, Roberto Firmino has dropped deeper while the strikers either side of him have come closer together. In transitional phases, Liverpool’s formation has become a 4-3-1-2. While Firmino and Mohamed Salah have not been at their best – and there are a variety of non-formational reasons which might explain that – the tweak has helped Sadio Mane start the season brilliantly, with the Senegalese scoring four times.
Tottenham does give Liverpool the opportunity to confirm all of these supposed improvements. The club’s size and global social media following means that once something with a semblance of truth gets written once, it has a tendency to be turned into an absolute impression of the way things are without any
consideration for nuances – or facts – because of the number of times it is repeated.
Victories at Crystal Palace and Leicester, apparently, were definitive signs that progression has been made, overlooking the reality that Liverpool had gone to Crystal Palace and Leicester last season and won having offered similar disjointed performances at both venues, where one end of the team functioned slightly better than the other and it was enough to get what they wanted.
Instead it is the defeats at Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea and, indeed, Tottenham that need reversing. They could also do with a win at Wembley too, a place where they have lost on four occasions in a row since 2012. It is ultimately the victories at these venues that spreads the most fear, contributing towards an added sense of trepidation amongst the sides they should really be beating if aspirations are to be realised.