New Manager [Klopp Watch]

[Buzzo]

This isnt a comment on you. Just an example of something I have noticed.

When things go well, its the faceless FSG who get credit. But when its perceived to go wrong its Ayre or Mike Gordon. Usually Ayre as he seems to be a lightening Rod for fans complaints.

This is true of any organisation to be honest - when things are going well it's the staff, when things are going badly it's the management.

[Yozza]

Wolfgang de Beer.


De Beer kept goal for Dortmund for 15 years before a serious knee injury forced him to hang up his gloves in 2001, with the German going on to become the Bundesliga club's goalkeeping coach a year later.

The 51-year-old stayed at the Signal Iduna Park following Klopp's departure at the end of last season, so it is not known whether he would follow him to Merseyside or not.

How German is he?

[marcus50bucks]

Impossible job of matching ambition with reality awaits

Tony Barrett
Last updated at 12:01AM, October 6 2015

Wanted: An experienced, top-class manager with a proven record of success to manage a fallen giant with the Barclays Premier League’s fifth-biggest wage bill and expectations of European and domestic success.

Salary: Negotiable but contract subject to possible severance.

Location: Liverpool.

The idea is as attractive as it is romantic: Liverpool appoint a top-class manager and, just as they did after the arrival of Bill Shankly in 1959, the club are turned into a bastion of invincibility capable of conquering all at home and abroad. The problem is it also seems increasingly unrealistic. For all their history of success, Liverpool’s decline over the past 25 years has put them at a disadvantage that means it will take a great deal more than an elite manager to transform them.

All the relevant performance indicators — sporting, financial and historical — highlight a club where expectations outstrip reality. In one sense, that is not unhealthy. As Gary McAllister, their first-team coach, emphasised recently, the time to really worry for Liverpool’s future is when the pressure to be successful disappears. “If you lose that and it does become accepted it’s not going to be right,” the former player said. “But that won’t happen here.”

The problem for Jürgen Klopp if, as expected, he succeeds Brendan Rodgers as manager, is that expectation becomes a burden far too easily at Liverpool. A fanbase brought up on a diet of Shanklyisms such as “first is first and second is nowhere” cannot all of a sudden accept that fifth is par, as Rodgers claimed, regardless of how realistic that appraisal might be. When you have a club mantra that states, “Liverpool exists to win trophies”, failing to win cannot be an option.

It is this conflict, between dreams and reality, ambition and limitation, past and present, that every modern Liverpool manager must deal with. Regardless of Liverpool having the top flight’s fifth-largest wage bill, fifth- largest revenue stream and will have the country’s fifth-largest stadium once redevelopment work is complete, the manager is still charged with presiding over a top-four finish and winning trophies. The tension between expectation and what logic suggests is achievable is achingly apparent.

To put Liverpool’s status into perspective, in five of the past six seasons they have finished no higher than sixth. When Rodgers’s successor takes his seat at Anfield for the first time, though, he will be confronted by dozens of banners on the Kop depicting glorious deeds. History will accompany him every step of the way. The standards set will either serve as inspiration or become a burden.

Attempting to lower expectations is not advisable. Roy Hodgson tried it — albeit to a sometimes ridiculous extent with Northampton Town described as “formidable opponents” and slender first-leg victories against mediocre European teams hailed as “famous nights” — and suffered as a result. Highlighting the superior wealth available at rival clubs might be logical and there will be many neutrals who are amenable to such pragmatism, but do it too often and accusations of defeatism are likely to follow.

This is the lot of the Liverpool manager. All the advantages that Chelsea, Arsenal and the two Manchester clubs enjoy are there for all to see but you will be expected, if not to overcome them, then certainly to challenge them at the very least. If that does not happen — as Rodgers, Kenny Dalglish, Hodgson, Rafael Benítez, Gérard Houllier, Roy Evans and Graeme Souness have discovered to their cost since Liverpool were last crowned champions 25 years ago — dismissal becomes inevitable.

Gary Neville, an astute observer of Liverpool regardless of his Manchester United affiliations, pointed out recently that Anfield has become too easy for top players to leave. Liverpool have stopped being a club where players can expect to win things and yet their managers are given little leeway when trophies elude them.

Even more harshly, Rodgers, like Benítez, discovered that even challenging for the league title and finishing runners-up offers little protection if those standards are not maintained. Having come within a Steven Gerrard slip against Chelsea of becoming a title-winning manager, Rodgers will need no reminders of the small margins between success and failure.

Raheem Sterling’s decision to join Manchester City was arguably the most damaging of all to Liverpool’s status. It also raised another question that went overlooked in the PR battle between club and player — how much money would have been available to Rodgers last summer had Sterling not been sold for an initial fee of £44 million? Given their net spend was about £17 million, the answer is probably not a great deal.

There is clear scope for improvement, though, particularly where transfers are concerned. The turnover of players has been far too high in recent years, and a policy of less is more could help create the necessary conditions for progress. But for that to happen, Fenway Sports Group (FSG), Liverpool’s owner, will need to reverse their strategy of spreading the risk in terms of who they buy and reconsider a wage policy that has restricted them in the transfer market and allowed their rivals to steal a march.

The work that FSG has done to restore Liverpool to financial health should not be understated but if Klopp is to fare better than his predecessors, he will need a great deal of help if he is to be given the best chance of matching reality and ambition. The last time he was at Anfield, for a pre-season friendly in 2014, the Borussia Dortmund coach at the time gazed at the Kop in awe. His arrival would see the Liverpool supporters return the compliment, but winning their affection is the easy bit, matching their club’s ambitions is where the challenge really lies.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/...cle4577010.ece

[Yozza]

Jurgen Klopp to Liverpool: Romantic coach enchanted by club's storied history

The German coach is old enough to remember the Merseyside club's glory days and romantic enough to wish to restore them

Simon Hughes Tuesday 6 October 2015

A hopeful crowd gathered at the gates of Melwood yesterday afternoon, waiting for smoke to rise from the training enclave like it does when the Vatican chooses a new pope.

Elsewhere, Jürgen Klopp and his advisors were discussing the prospect of a future at Liverpool; a managerial responsibility that on Merseyside is papal in its standing.

Those who know Klopp well say he is a romantic and this is why Liverpool enchants him. He acts on instinct and feeling. He pays attention to the memories that rattle around in the back of his consciousness; memories that remain vivid no matter how long they have been there.

Like other German men in his age group, Klopp, 48, remembers when England’s football teams dominated Europe. He was a month short of his tenth birthday, when, in 1977, Liverpool collected its first European Cup by beating Borussia Mönchengladbach in Rome.

As Klopp approached adulthood, Hamburg, Mönchengladbach again and Bayern Munich were dispatched by Liverpool and consequentially, Anfield’s trophy room needed extending.

Klopp remembers an era when the tradition of English football commanded an aura: when Germany and its football culture aspired to be English instead of it being the other way around as it is now.

Klopp’s mind is not cluttered. But it remembers. He will have thought about what it was like when he took over at Borussia Dortmund. He will realise that there are some similarities with history and present circumstance at Liverpool. He will recognise the differences too.

The message from Fenway Sports Group, Liverpool’s owners, will be to make Liverpool successful again and almost certainly, to qualify for the Champions League. The message will be delivered as more of an ambition rather than a demand.

At Dortmund, he was not recruited to turn back the clocks and propel the club to the top of the Bundesliga. The mood in 2008 was corrosive: a fan base feeling short-changed and fed up of a team that did not reliably give 100-per-cent to the cause. Supporters merely wanted to see effort again, something they could identify with: players with the ability to harness the passion from the terraces onto the pitch.

In his first weeks at Dortmund he considered it crucial the process of speaking with fan groups. When one eminent ultra who, because of his job as an insurance salesman, was caught in traffic and therefore late for a meeting by one hour, Klopp insisted on the sit-down being delayed for as long as it took because he wanted everyone to be there.

Klopp was already popular in Germany before landing the job at the Westfalenstadion. Working as a pundit during the World Cup of 2006, while he was still in charge of Mainz, his popularity rocketed because of his natural and funny manner in front of the camera. He rarely said the same thing twice and did not use stock phrases.

This ability was crucial at Dortmund where his pre-match team talks became legendary and presidential in its deliverance. His command of language when speaking in German is creative and although competent in English – certainly by the standards of other foreign managers - it may have concerned him that it is not strong enough to get an impassioned but clear message across in the really vital moments. It explains why he has rejected several offers to manage in Spain since beginning a sabbatical in May. He realises his limitations.

Klopp is certainly no careerist. He played only for Mainz before becoming manager for seven years, spending the same number of seasons at Dortmund. Though he has been offered a three-year contract by Liverpool, he feels this will be his only English club and could end up staying for longer if the relationship works.

Friends say that although he did not initially realise it, he had come to accept that a year away from football would be beneficial for his own well being, such is the intensity with which he operates. When Lucien Favre resigned as Mönchengladbach’s manager on September 20, Klopp was immediately suggested as a replacement by those with power inside the club but Klopp made it clear he wanted to remain at peace for a little while longer.

Friends also say his decision to join Liverpool will not be based around what money is on offer. Potentially, he will earn considerably more at Anfield than he did at Dortmund and unusually; some believe it might even put him off, a sign of Liverpool’s desperation and a reflection of the Premier League’s transience.

This thought will bring him to the issue of the people he is working for. When Brendan Rodgers was sacked on Sunday by telephone, it was mainly due to the fact that those making the decision were a plane ride away across the Atlantic. When Klopp left Dortmund, chairman Hans-Joachim Watzke, was by his side and holding the expression of someone whose relative had died. Klopp, in need of a break, appeared relieved. Watzke was shattered. But he was there.

Klopp realises managing Liverpool will pose different challenges to Dortmund. He will arrive in a place that is certainly fragile and certainly fortunate, fortunate that at least one significant person inside the football world takes a sympathetic view of Liverpool’s continuing claim to greatness, someone who ultimately, is stirred by the nostalgic bonds of history.

[Fosterbloke]

Another nail biting day! So ****ing excited!!

[Alex]

Ahh itll be friday. Im basically 99% sure its all done, just the little details to iron out now.

No way would this many be writing articles about it if it wasnt done.

[redmike65]

Looks entirely convincing

[Yozza]

Jürgen Klopp just the man to pump up the Anfield volume for Liverpool

Raphael Honigstein

A befuddled silence has befallen Liverpool since their near-miss in 2014 and, after what he did at Borussia Dortmund, it seems Jürgen Klopp would be a good choice to cut through it

What will Jürgen Klopp make of his description as “the love child of Jeremy Corbyn” by one UK paper this week? It’s hard to contemplate. Klopp being Klopp, however, he may just play along with the joke and cheekily rehash an old speech for his inaugural address as the new Reds leader, scheduled for some time at the end of next week.

The script still fits, after all. At his unveiling at Borussia Dortmund in May 2008, the Swabian vowed to get the fallen, financially hemmed-in Bundesliga giants “back into the groove”, to improve the players by making them “reach higher” and get a mid-table team low on cohesion and excitement to “play once more the kind of football the people here want to see”.

His then revolutionary tactics of high, concerted pressing all over the pitch turned Dortmund into title winners and one of Europe’s most admired sides in the space of two seasons. The wealth and sheer number of clubs ahead of Liverpool in the Premier League table will make a repeat of such thrilling success much more difficult in England, where players are also not used to doing double shifts in training and no one has, of yet, found a sustainable way to get a team to run this much, this often, without a winter break, throughout a campaign.

But Klopp’s likely appointment at Liverpool feels so instinctively right because the 48-year-old’s extra-large personality will immediately cut through much of the befuddled silence that has befallen Anfield since the club almost won the championship in 2014 and ensure the volume is from now on turned all the way up.

His Dortmund side fed off the electricity and noise of the Signal Iduna Park, a 81,359 volt boom box that blasts out a passable version of You’ll Never Walk Alone before each game.

“I like the total intensification [that happens in a game], when there are crashes and bangs everywhere, a sense of ‘all of nothing’, pure adrenaline and no one being able to breathe,” Klopp told Die Zeit in 2012. His ability to talk a good game has been a key component of his progress since taking over as player‑manager for perennial nobodies Mainz in 2001.

Jan Doehling, a producer at the Mainz-based state television channel ZDF, had seen Klopp captivate audiences with passionate speeches at end‑of‑season parties in the town square: “He brought tears to everyone’s eyes and had mothers holding up their babies, yelling that they would name them after him,” Doehling recalls, with only a hint of exaggeration.

Klopp was picked as the main pundit for the 2005 Confederations Cup in Germany, despite having never won a significant trophy as player or manager. He was a revelation, pointing out tactical details on screen “in an entertaining, funny, sexy manner”. Crucially, he made sure to use self-deprecating humour, to avoid patronising the audience. He spoke to them like a friend in a pub, without airs and graces.

While Jürgen Klinsmann’s team enthralled the public at the 2006 World Cup, Klopp joyfully played the role of the country’s TV national manager, winning plaudits for his insight. “We realised that this guy knows how to put his point across and to mesmerise people,” Doehling says. “If he had started a political party, they would have voted him into government immediately.”

Menschenfänger, they call guys like him in Germany, someone who can literally catch people and talk them into doing things they themselves did not feel possible. Players never went through the proverbial brick wall for him, however, instead they trusted him to show them the quickest way around it. The overall aim is to get their “synapses to glow”, through constant learning and improvement, he once explained, revealing he hired a Life Kinetik coach to teach them peripheral vision.

In some quarters Klopp has been wrongly described as merely a strong motivator. While it’s fair to say he has relied on the expertise of his assistant coaches Peter Krawitz and Zeljko Buvac to underpin the effort exerted by the players in his brand of “hunting football”, Klopp’s ability to get complicated points across in a clear, uplifting manner has been key. The relatively young squad at Liverpool, coupled with the fact they are low on trophy winners, should make it easier for him to install his regime.

Things started to go sour at BVB after the historic double of 2012, before Bayern snatched away two important players, Mario Götze and Robert Lewandowski. As injuries piled up, doubts over Klopp’s fitness regime surfaced while opposing teams started to copy his tactics.

Klopp’s all-or-nothing approach continued to thrill, all the way down to the bottom of the table last season and then up again to a respectable seventh place but the relationship had run its course. There are only so many rousing speeches you can deliver before a team become deaf. It has been telling that virtually the same side are back to their spell-binding best under the guidance of Thomas Tuchel, who has slowed down things to make their style more sustainable.

At Liverpool, though, fans and boardroom crave the raw thrill of what Klopp has called Englischer Fussball, a 100mph tour de force with guaranteed action in the box. In Klopp, the Anglophile football romantic, they will bring in a prophet with a loudspeaker who is himself one of the converted.

[Slinky Skills]

Booooooooooooo

Booooooooooooooooooo!!!!

Haha, Slinks has been booed off the pitch. An est first.

I'll expect a decent fight of it next season. 4th minimum target next year just as it was for Rodgers. This season, hasn't got time to get the players fit enough or make them understand his philosophy. We will know more in a months time of what to expect.

I know where you're coming from but I think people are just excited again mate & you can't blame them after the past year & a bit.....

As long he brings back passion & purpose with a real push at fourth I'll be delighted for this season anyway

Of course guys I am excited as well even though I don't know much about him lol but I think there's too much expectation of him already. He hasn't even been confirmed as the manager yet ha ha!

I hope he's a success of course but we need to be realistic with our expectations.

[Alex]

Ahhh Slinks. Being realistic with expectations is for work. Not for Football. I always expect us to win the league every year and score 100 goals.

[Bender]

Of course guys I am excited as well even though I don't know much about him lol but I think there's too much expectation of him already. He hasn't even been confirmed as the manager yet ha ha!

I hope he's a success of course but we need to be realistic with our expectations.

should have waited till Friday slinky,now you have voided the Guarantee on that new computer

[Phoenix07]

The thing is, we know Klopp has the experience and the trophies to back up what he's doing. Rafa had an up and down start, and I think Klopp will go through something similar. The disadvantage Klopp has is that he doesn't have a pre-season to familiarise the players with his methods.

He's going to come in, and probably rely on that initial boost a new manager gives to see him through October. I think we may even see a shift in focus onto the cup competitions this season, just to simply try and breed a winning mentality back into the club. I'd like to think we can capitalise on Chelsea's dire start and go for 4th.

I'll be really interested in seeing what Klopp says about his objectives for the remainder of the season.

[Assassin]

The thing is, we know Klopp has the experience and the trophies to back up what he's doing. Rafa had an up and down start, and I think Klopp will go through something similar. The disadvantage Klopp has is that he doesn't have a pre-season to familiarise the players with his methods.

He's going to come in, and probably rely on that initial boost a new manager gives to see him through October. I think we may even see a shift in focus onto the cup competitions this season, just to simply try and breed a winning mentality back into the club. I'd like to think we can capitalise on Chelsea's dire start and go for 4th.

I'll be really interested in seeing what Klopp says about his objectives for the remainder of the season.

This is a huge plus compared to the last two incumbents

[Maxiedge]

This isnt a comment on you. Just an example of something I have noticed.

When things go well, its the faceless FSG who get credit. But when its perceived to go wrong its Ayre or Mike Gordon. Usually Ayre as he seems to be a lightening Rod for fans complaints.

..but they have handled it well.

They gave Rodgers and his staff all the tools they needed to at least get some sort of consistency/playing style going. We weren't asking to be top of the league...just win the games or at least dominate the ones against lesser opposition (Europa League minnows and Norwich home really stand out).

Ok, you could argue, some players were thrust upon Rodgers from the committee but when he's been given free reign on transfers, he's completely bollocksed it up. So all in all, the players the committee have brought in have been bettter.

Sorry my piss is just slightly boiled as I think FSG were super patient and kind to Rodgers and they should be given massive credit for that.

**** manager. End of.

[redmike65]

Klopp will have a free pass this season, FSG will hope that a top 4 finish is possible given the nature of the league so far but they won't be expecting it so he'll have some space to try different things I think.