Jürgen Klopp

[Phoenix07]

I don't want to bring politics into this thread, indeed I'm trying to mentally tune out from all that for a while, but since our politics / elections have become so much more presidential, I've begun to think Klopp would be an amazing PM for this country. As a figurehead, with his ability to unite and inspire people, (and left leaning politics obviously) he's ****ing unsurpassed. I guess that says more about my - and no doubt all of our - unbridled love for him. He's an incredible bloke.

If Klopp and Hodgson were running for PM, I bet this country would vote for the latter.

[Shaggy]

If Klopp and Hodgson were running for PM, I bet this country would vote for the latter.

Ha. You're probably right mate. "I'm not voting for that German Marxist cunt!"

[Roboklopp]

If Klopp and Hodgson were running for PM, I bet this country would vote for the latter.

[Irishnev]

[ame="https://twitter.com/Ifcjoseph/status/1208841980127698944"]https://twitter.com/Ifcjoseph/status/1208841980127698944[/ame]

[rodo]

havent seen this posted what a ****ing fella we have

[ame="https://youtu.be/4jWZVtkJdC0"]Lessons in LEADERSHIP from Jürgen Klopp - YouTube[/ame]

[Shaggy]

[Roboklopp]

[Buzzo]

[Irishnev]

Article from The Athletic

In a very short space of time, it has all become very familiar. That ability to hold on, calmly and assuredly, through rocky periods. The knowledge of how to speed things up and how to slow them down. That knack of rising to the occasion when it really matters. Jordan Henderson’s fast-foot shuffle on the podium before hoisting another trophy skywards.

In Madrid in June, it was the Champions League, their first trophy in seven years. In Istanbul in August, it was the Super Cup. This time, in Doha in December, it was the Club World Cup, secured with the type of gritty, resolute performance that has eventually become Liverpool’s calling card under Jurgen Klopp. “Our mentality shone through,” Henderson said after that gruelling 1-0 extra-time victory over Flamengo. “We’ve found a way for a long time now.”

He’s not wrong. So often this season the talk has been of Liverpool digging deep and finding a way. In the 18 matches they have played since October 5, Klopp’s team have scored equalisers in the 85th and 94th minute and winners in the 75th, 85th, 91st, 94th, 95th and now, in extra-time against Flamengo, the 99th minute. As Pep Guardiola has said through gritted teeth, “If it’s one time, two times, ‘We were lucky, we were lucky’, but it happened in the last two seasons many, many times. They have a special character to do that.”

The remarkable thing about Liverpool is that this character, this mentality, is precisely what they lacked for so much of this decade. They were the type of team who blew hot and cold, winning plaudits for their attacking play under Brendan Rodgers as well as Klopp but never quite showing the resilience required to win the biggest prizes. They were fragile, flaky — so much style at times, but, ultimately, so little substance.

Two years ago yesterday, on December 22, 2017, Liverpool took on Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium. It was a pulsating, breathtaking Friday night game in which Liverpool went from 2-0 up to 3-2 down in what felt like the blink of an eye. Roberto Firmino’s equaliser earned them a draw but it was mayhem, some wonderfully fluent attacking football undermined by three goals inside four minutes and 45 seconds early in the second half.

“It was not too cool,” Klopp said afterwards. “We had five minutes where we had… obvious problems. That’s how it is… and individual problems, not team defending. First goal: that’s why you should avoid crosses because when the ball is in the box it’s at least 50-50, and… misjudgment. Misjudgment around the second goal. Third goal, misjudgment, too deep, too easy. Good to learn from but we need to react differently.”

James Milner, their most experienced player, put it differently that night. “In that position, we’ve got to see the game out,” the vice-captain said, his brow furrowed. “We’ve got to become more boring — tighten up and not make mistakes. All their goals are our fault, really. That’s something we need to learn from. And we need to do it quickly because it seems to be a thing for us this year.”

Milner wasn’t wrong. That was their 28th match in all competitions that season and it was the ninth time they had conceded two or more goals. As well as two heavy defeats (5-0 at Manchester City and 4-1 at Tottenham), they had drawn 3-3 at Watford from 3-2 up, drawn 2-2 at home to Sevilla having been 2-1 up, scraped their way to a nerve-fraught 3-2 win at Leicester having been 2-0 up, drawn 3-3 away to Sevilla having been 3-0 up and now drawn 3-3 at Arsenal having been 2-0 up.

It was maddening to watch. There was beauty when they crossed the halfway line, playing through Philippe Coutinho, but they were like one of those cut-and-shut cars, a stylish front end welded with a faulty rear. Whichever combination of Joe Gomez, Joel Matip, Dejan Lovren or Ragnar Klavan was playing in central defence, whichever of Simon Mignolet or Loris Karius was in goal, they looked vulnerable even when dominating games. It was not just individual fragility. Anxiety spread through the team.

And look at them now. The reverse applies. Even when they are struggling to find their rhythm, as was the case for much of the first half against Flamengo, there is a sense of control. Even when the ebb and flow of a game goes away from them, there is a sense of assurance rather than the panic of old. In extra-time against Flamengo, with Milner joining Henderson in midfield, it was all about maturity and control. There was a sniff of a chance for the Brazilian team right at the end but otherwise, it was an education in the things that players like to call “game management”.

They still produce more sparkling football than most. In the past few weeks alone, they have produced a variety of wonderfully incisive moves to cut open Everton, Bournemouth, RB Salzburg and Watford. Another came on 99 minutes in Doha, when Henderson’s pass split the Flamengo defence to release Sadio Mane, who in turn set up Firmino for the only goal of the game.

In aesthetic terms, though, it is not like two years ago, when Jose Mourinho ventured, his tone dripping with sarcasm, that “You (the media) like to say they are the last wonder of the world in attacking football”. At that time, when so much of their football flowed through Coutinho, their play — in terms of their mastery of the ball when attacking — drew more praise but always came with caveats about the fragility elsewhere in the team.

Tactically, the updated, post-Coutinho model is an altogether different proposition. They no longer press their opposition as wildly or energetically as they did in those first couple of years. Klopp says this change was largely forced on them, a case of reacting to a change in the opposition’s approach to playing against them. “We will still be there with the counter-press but very often, it’s not possible,” he said 12 months ago. “It means that now we have to control more games. We have to keep the ball, especially against counter-attacking sides.”

The change in emphasis was explained by Milner in an interview with The Athletic earlier this season. “It’s experience, playing together, belief and just the way the team has evolved, I think,” he said. “We were very gung-ho at times before and we seemed to have spells in games where we could blow anyone away. But maybe we didn’t know [when] to stop that and when to stop sending so many players forward.

“We’ve developed since then. People might look at us two years ago and say we were playing exciting football more of the time but then the next game, we would be off the pace and we would lose or draw, whereas now there’s that consistency, that knowledge of how to get the job done, even if we’re struggling. If it takes 95 minutes, you find a way to do it. The team has got very good at that. When you’re playing 50-60 games a season, you’re not going to play your best every single time, so you need to find ways to win matches when you’re not at your best.”

Against Flamengo, they did not keep the ball that brilliantly. As against RB Salzburg recently, there were times in the first half when they were up against the ropes. In the equivalent situation two years ago, it is impossible to imagine them getting through a period like that unscathed. These days, with Alisson commanding his penalty area and Virgil van Dijk patrolling the defence, you almost expect them to hold firm, to weather the storm before reasserting themselves in midfield, as Henderson certainly did on Saturday.

They look like a totally different group of players now, with Henderson a case in point. Of course some top-grade reinforcements have helped enormously — Alisson in goal, Van Dijk in central defence, Fabinho at the base of midfield, even though he missed the tournament in Qatar with an ankle ligament injury — but even with such judicious signings in the transfer market, it is highly unusual for a team to undergo such a transformation.

The importance of reinforcing the spine of the team — Alisson, Van Dijk and Fabinho — really cannot be stated enough but what is so striking is the improvement in those around them. Before Van Dijk’s arrival, it never seemed to matter which combination of Gomez, Matip or Lovren was playing in central defence; there would always be vulnerability for their opponents to exploit. Now, it doesn’t seem to matter which of them is playing alongside Van Dijk. Matip and Lovren have made huge contributions over the past 12 months and Gomez, after a difficult year, produced an excellent performance against Flamengo.

Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson looked raw and hesitant two years ago, as if the Liverpool shirt weighed heavily on their shoulders. Again, look at them now: assertive, capable of looking after themselves in those petty squabbles on the pitch as well as with the ball at their feet. Two years ago, Liverpool’s midfield options seemed much of a muchness in a negative sense; these days, Klopp can turn to any three from Fabinho, Henderson, Milner, Georginio Wijnaldum, Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and expect control and maturity. As for the forward line, it is hard to add much more to what has been be said about Mo Salah, Firmino and Mane as a trio.

On his arrival at Anfield in October 2015, Klopp said his first challenge was to turn Liverpool — the players, the supporters, the entire club — “from doubters into believers”. He got them believing immediately, enthused by his energy and by the high-tempo football he preached. The progress over the first two years was clear. The difficult part was to turn them from believers into achievers. Defeats in the Europa League and League Cup finals (season one), the League Cup semi-final (season two) and the Champions League final (season three) were far from damning but they all seemed to highlight a certain fallibility in their ranks.

Since the start of last season, they have played 55 Premier League matches: 46 wins, eight draws and a solitary defeat in that titanic tussle with City at the Etihad on January 3. It is title-winning form for just under season and a half. That they have not won the title over that period is only down to City’s even more relentless brilliance last season.

The fact that Liverpool are doing all of this in an unconventional order — champions of Europe, champions of the world, but still striving to become champions of England — will no doubt attract some salty comments from rival fans but those barbs will fall flat. If this was an inconsistent team who had won the Champions League out of nothing (like Liverpool in 2005, for example, or Chelsea in 2012) and had gone on to add the Super Cup and Club World Cup while stumbling on the domestic front, there would be some reasonable gripes. But Liverpool have done all of that, plus reaching another Champions League final in 2018, while performing with breathtaking consistency in the Premier League. Of the past 165 points available, they have taken 146. For a team who were previously and rightly disparaged for their flaky tendencies, that really is remarkable.

The best in the world? Well, beating Monterrey and Flamengo over the course of four days in Qatar, in a tournament shoved awkwardly into a busy period of the European football calendar, does not exactly feel like irrefutable evidence but who else has built up a stronger claim over the course of 2019? Certainly, no team in Europe can match Liverpool’s consistency in the big Champions League games over the past couple of seasons. Few would make a stronger claim on behalf of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Juventus or Paris Saint-Germain, all of them in varying degrees of transition.

Over the past couple of years, the most compelling answer would have been Manchester City, even if luck and composure have deserted them in the Champions League knock-out stages. Klopp himself has lauded City as the best on a couple of occasions — and it rang true, given the football they were playing and the results they were getting at the time. City’s stunning performance against Leicester on Saturday evening was a barely-needed reminder of their ability under Guardiola to reach heights that few other teams can match, if any, but all such debates come down to consistency. That is where Liverpool are outdoing City so far this season, even if Guardiola’s team should not and must not be written off in the Premier League title race.

Liverpool’s next six Premier League matches are against Leicester, Wolves (twice), Sheffield United, Tottenham and Manchester United. That, with an FA Cup third-round tie against Everton thrown in for good measure, threatens to be their toughest run of the season.

For all that Klopp had said that winning the Club World Cup, for the first time in Liverpool’s history, would feel “like landing on the moon”, there is no time for him or his players to rest on their laurels or to contemplate the size of this latest achievement. For Liverpool, the ultimate “moon landing” is to be champions of England for the first time since 1990. From this position, on top of the world, they will be more confident than ever, even if they know that, over the weeks and months to come, there will be severe tests of the resilience and endurance that have improbably become their defining traits.

[Buzzo]

Great read. Thanks

[Irishnev]

Great read. Thanks

a bunch of stuff on Liverpool to catch up on and had time earlier to read/share

[RedReet]

[ame]https://twitter.com/_ChrisBascombe/status/1213095164442492928[/ame]

[Liverpool]

duno if this has been posted in full before

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mE0Nu02TZw"]In Conversation With Jurgen Klopp & Arsene Wenger | Full Interview - YouTube[/ame]

[Shaggy]

****ing love that.

[Kenneth]

Yep, really good (apart from the Qatari propaganda)

There are so many managers around the high levels of the game that create the impression that almost anyone could be a football manager with enough time and a relatively basic understanding of tactics. Neil Warnock, Ian Holloway, Mick Mccarthy, Solskjaer etc, people who are not the brightest but have been around the game long enough to have a decent grasp of it and who can reasonably copy people they've worked under. But the very top managers, like these two, are genuinely intelligent, high performing individuals and are people who undoubtedly could be hugely successful in other fields. And it's really interesting to listen to them, whereas a 30 minute conversation with Steve Bruce and Sean Dyche would be totally unwatchable.