Klopp has his eyes on seventh heaven to redefine history
AS always in his adoptive city, Jurgen Klopp was surrounded by what he has described as ‘the history on our backs’.
Images of Roger Hunt and David Fairclough — decorated legends of the days when Liverpool won league titles — hung in the small meeting room where he paused to discuss the Premier League finishing stretch and the first of the seven hurdles his team must clear.
Klopp is avoiding the background noises in many ways. He watched England’s win in Montenegro with the volume turned down.
The same applied to the realism of his discussion about what lies ahead in the next 42 days.
Before all the sound and fury started, he wanted to point out that there may very well be moments when things go wrong within games and Liverpool will be shipping water, fighting to maintain their challenge.
‘We will have problems in the football game,’ he said. ‘You have to accept you will have problems. We have had a lot. That has allowed us not to feel the pressure. I don’t feel the pressure. We just go for it. Let us do it again, again and again. Don’t hesitate. That is the plan.’
The philosophy is necessary in this city, which is pre-disposed to heady dreams about recapturing the title last won 29 years ago.
Klopp, you might say, is making this the antithesis of the denouement of the 2013-14 season — that crazy spring when Steven Gerrard staged his huddle on the pitch after the 3-2 defeat of Manchester City.
‘This is gone. We go to Norwich, exactly the same, we go again. Come on!’ The city lapped it up. Someone scrawled Gerrard’s fabled words on a bedsheet which was draped over the Melwood wall the next week.
The manager does not even want to countenance a conversation of Liverpool’s need to score goals and do something about City’s superior goal difference.
‘I don’t tell the boys to go out there and score six!’ he said. ‘It is not an obvious thing you go for because it is disrespectful. You score when you score.
‘People may say when we play Huddersfield, for example, we can improve our goal difference but it is a case of score the first goal, then the second.
‘Maybe in the last game (Wolves) we will have to win by three or four. If we have to do that in the last match, then we will try.’
Today brings a match at home to Tottenham which, on paper, looks the most challenging of the seven. There will then be only Chelsea, at Anfield two weeks from now, to play from the sides who formed the top six heading into this weekend.
Mauricio Pochettino’s side conjure memories of the 4-1 evisceration Liverpool suffered at Wembley in autumn 2017, a match which was more of a catalyst than any other in the defensive reconstruction which brought Virgil van Dijk to the club.
It is hard to avoid the sense that the defeat contributed to Klopp taking the opposition threat into consideration far more. His philosophy had always been that each game was all about what Liverpool do.
There had been little tactical work on how to deal with Harry Kane during training that week.
In a frantic finale at Anfield last February, Kane missed a late penalty but then converted a second awarded to his team.
‘You want to be the Golden Boot winner, so you cannot waste chances,’ said Klopp. ‘But one alone against Harry Kane is really difficult. It’s like always with world-class strikers, you have to avoid the passes to him.’
There is substantial evidence to suggest that Tottenham may not be the greatest impediment in the weeks ahead.
They arrive as Liverpool’s unbeaten home run is about to enter its 24th month.
Pochettino has won only one in 10 against Klopp’s side as Spurs manager.
Under his management, Spurs have won only three in 23 league games away to top-six rivals.
His side could do with a positive result this afternoon, with Manchester United now level with them on 61 points after yesterday’s home win over Watford — and Arsenal and Chelsea breathing down their necks into the bargain.
Klopp, however, returns to the fray more tanned and seemingly more relaxed than two weeks ago, though the smile that played across his face when talk turned to Manchester City did not entirely disguise the size of the task in hand.
‘We have seven games,’ he said. ‘We need to win all of them because City will not lose any.’