Jürgen Klopp

[Angryred]

Apparently there's some ****ing Europa Conference League next season too, some new bollocks. If you're out of the Europa League, you end up in that. Third tier European competition. Absolute joke.

When will these be played?...Friday mornings?

[Irishnev]

Seem to recall last season lots of talk in the media and on various sites about how City were finished and how they would need a massive rebuild in midfield and in attack.

Gundogan was rubbish. Jesus would not get goals. Rodri was a clogger. Silva was a PED head. The team had no fight, no heart and what not.

Yes they added to the backline but the same players that were written off last season are firing this season and nobody is questioning their fight or heart now, plus they are grinding out results when they have to this season.

Their weaker season came after two seasons of huge effort, and it appears that maybe they were suffering from a degree of burn out in the third season.

Our bad season has come after two seasons of immense effort and has been further impacted by a very steady run of injuries to key players, and we have been playing for quite some time now without our best CBs (and best back up CB) and without our best CMs starting in midfield. Throw in time missed by our keeper, and injuries to those who would be our next in line back ups and we really have been running on both fumes and the bare bones of our squad.

What really screwed us this season is our back ups imho. When we needed our first choice back ups they were either all out injured yet again or, in the case of the likes of Origi, too much of a drop off in quality to those they needed to cover/replace.

Get some hopefully reliable cover in the summer plus a proper preseason, and I suspect we will see a return to a much more competitive run of form from us.

I do think next season will be a three horse race for much of the season, with City, us and Chelsea are being in it until deep into the season.

Sensible as always - a humiliating season is also good fuel for a siege mentality. We have missed fans massively, we have missed Klopp’s training camps to implement new ideas and as you said our back ups when really needed either aren’t good enough or available. I think Klopp needs a break also - he is straining now with bizarre press conferences, more bizarre substitutions and even more bizarre refusal to move away from tactics that aren’t working

[S-RED]

****ing Thursdays, just checked...

There will be a third season-long UEFA men's football club competition for the first time in more than 20 years next season when the UEFA Europa Conference League begins. We explain who will be involved and when games will be played.

Who enters the UEFA Europa Conference League?

In all, 184 teams will be involved over the course of the season including at least one from each of the 55 associations and 46 clubs transferring from either the UEFA Champions League or UEFA Europa League.
Before the group stage there will be three qualifying rounds and a play-off round (split into a main path, and a champions path for those transferring from the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League champions path). The access list explains which teams (including some national cup winners) enter from which associations and in which rounds, as well as how clubs transfer from the other competitions.
No teams qualify directly for the group stage, with the 32 teams consisting of:

• 17 teams from the UEFA Europa Conference League main path
• 5 teams from the UEFA Europa Conference League champions path
• 10 teams eliminated in the UEFA Europa League play-offs

How will it work?

There will be eight groups of four teams, followed by knockout round play-offs, the round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final.
The eight group winners automatically go through to the last 16. Additional knockout round play-offs will then be played before the round of 16 between the eight group runners-up and the third-ranked teams of the UEFA Europa League groups.

First final: Tirana

The 21,690-capacity National Arena (Arena Kombëtare) will stage the first final on 25 May 2022, as announced by the UEFA Executive Committee on 3 December 2020. The stadium opened in November 2019 with a European Qualifier between Albania and France. It was built, with the help of UEFA’s HatTrick assistance programme, on the site of the former Qemal Stafa Stadium in the centre of the Albanian capital.
When are the games?

The UEFA Europa Conference League fixtures will take place on Thursdays along with UEFA Europa League games (though the final in Tirana will be a week after the UEFA Europa League final in Sevilla on 18 May 2022). The matches of the two competitions will in principle be equally split between the two time slots: 18:45 CET (no longer 18:55) and 21:00 CET. Draw dates are to be confirmed.

First qualifying round: 8 & 15 July
Second qualifying round: 22 & 29 July
Third qualifying round: 5 & 12 August
Play-offs: 19 & 26 August
Group stage: 16 & 30 September, 21 October, 4 & 25 November, 9 December
Knockout round play-offs: 17 & 24 February
Round of 16: 10 & 17 March
Quarter-finals: 7 & 14 April
Semi-finals: 28 April & 5 May
Final: 25 May (National Arena, Tirana)
The competition will run throughout the 2021–2024 cycle at least.

What do the winners get?
The winner will gain a place in the following season's UEFA Europa League group stage if they have not qualified for the UEFA Champions League via their domestic competition.

[BobTheCharmer]

Sounds good does that.

[Scratch]

and even more bizarre refusal to move away from tactics that aren’t working

He's said before that this sort of thing is not possible when you play 2 games a week, as the days in between are centered on regaining fitness and keeping the muscles loose. Changing formation requires more time to train and drill. If he swapped formation now, no one would know what they were supposed to be doing properly and we would be in a worse mess than we are now. Hence we have to stick to what we know, but with players coming back from injury hopefully we will be able to rotate a few mis-firing legs and regain some impetus.

[Irishnev]

He's said before that this sort of thing is not possible when you play 2 games a week, as the days in between are centered on regaining fitness and keeping the muscles loose. Changing formation requires more time to train and drill. If he swapped formation now, no one would know what they were supposed to be doing properly and we would be in a worse mess than we are now. Hence we have to stick to what we know, but with players coming back from injury hopefully we will be able to rotate a few mis-firing legs and regain some impetus.

I get that and I’ve been banging that drum but simply dropping 10 yards deeper last night to counter the ball over the top to Werner would help. Tuchel said it before the game that he put Werner in the utilise the space behind the high line. I am referring to tactical changes mid game as well

[Doc_Piptorious]

Sensible as always - a humiliating season is also good fuel for a siege mentality. We have missed fans massively, we have missed Klopp’s training camps to implement new ideas and as you said our back ups when really needed either aren’t good enough or available. I think Klopp needs a break also - he is straining now with bizarre press conferences, more bizarre substitutions and even more bizarre refusal to move away from tactics that aren’t working

I do not see it as bizarre tbh.

With regards to the press conferences, he is a man under a lot of pressure who in my opinion is trying to invite even more pressure onto himself in an attempt to take the hit for his players. It would be very much in character for the man to take the heat when the **** is hitting the fan and praise the players when things are good.

His choice of substitutions...well I do not agree with some of his choices and on paper some may seem strange but I don't get to see how players are in training or if someone was carrying a slight knock or something.


The tactics one I sort of agree with you on if we take team selections as part of the tactics. I have very much been in the camp of play players in their natural positions as much as possible and play the best available player for each of those positions, and have been that was when we had Fabinho and Henderson fully fit. I would have had Henderson and Fab in midfield as soon as we had a few CBs to pick from, and gambled that a green CB pairing would be covered by a full strength midfield rather than going with a weakened CB pairing sitting behind a weakened midfield.

But if we are talking tactics and formations, then I think our current fragilities and squad depletions are hindering that an awful lot. We are missing a lot of our most adapatable players from positions in the team that are crucial to setting up a formation.

Sure we could go 4231 or 523 or whatever formation you like, but when you start puming our available players into those formations, you start to see things like a chronic lack of pace in one part of the pitch or a lack of guile in another part and so on, and that is before we even bring tactical tweaks to a given formation.

I actually think what we have been seen is an attempt to try tweaks on a few formations and what we are also seeing is that we are not adapting quickly on the pitch to those changes.

TBH the one formation I think might give us a bit more balance and solidity is that which Chelsea (523/5221 depending on when they were trying to spread or compress play) used for a lot of the game last night, but it would make us very much a soak up pressure and try to counter type of team looking at who we might have available and with Kabak out injured now, we would be back to having to put Fabinho into the back line and not into the 2 part of that formation.

Another variation of either a 532 or 433 I would like to see us play is one that sees Fabinho play a hybrid role not to dissimilar to the sweeper role of yesteryear. I would start him in the CDM role but when we are under pressure he would drop back to right in front of the CB pairing or even spilt the pairing to turn the 433 into a 523 when we are on the back foot. That way we get him as a midfielder when we have the ball or when the other team has the ball furher up the pitch, but when we need all hands to the pumps and are under pressure he goes into the sweeper type role and bolsters the back line. Would also be a way to counter pace over the top or runners from deep I think.

[BigChief]

If that's true then he probably needed to come off anyway, sounds like he'd run himself into the ground.

Which is fair. I wasn't too upset with Salah coming off because Klopp had already done the damage sending out the same tactics and formation from minute one. Salah staying on would have resulted in zero goals but >0 chance of injury to Mo.

With CL now the only meaningful thing left for us this season, mainly financially, it has to take priority.

[Exiled_red]

Which is fair. I wasn't too upset with Salah coming off because Klopp had already done the damage sending out the same tactics and formation from minute one. Salah staying on would have resulted in zero goals but >0 chance of injury to Mo.

With CL now the only meaningful thing left for us this season, mainly financially, it has to take priority.

At the moment we never look like scoring so with that reasoning he's not going to play again all season

[BigChief]

At the moment we never look like scoring so with that reasoning he's not going to play again all season

Thus keeping his value for when we sell him.

[Rafa Justice]

23 matches to get into the Europa League and the modern day equivalent of The Simod Cup. Awesome.

[Fredo]

Jürgen Klopp has claimed failure to qualify for next season’s Champions League would not damage Liverpool long term or prompt any player to seek an exit.

Liverpool’s prospects of finishing in the top four receded on Thursday when enduring a fifth successive home defeat for the first time. Klopp accepted the 1-0 defeat against Chelsea could undermine belief in his methods.

“If you want to doubt me and the team in this moment, I think that it is possible because of the results,” Klopp said.

However, he was defiant on Liverpool’s ability to withstand a season without Champions League football, and to avoid the internal problems that occurred when the club slipped out of the European elite under Rafael Benítez in 2010.

Klopp, who had spoken of the financial importance of Champions League qualification before the Chelsea defeat, said: “This club will not be a regular out of the Champions League. This year is difficult, we know that, but the potential and the power of the club is a completely different one. We have the squad together if they are not all injured. I do not know the team from 10 years ago, but we are ready for a battle in this era and with the team we have together.

“Seasons have momentum and we never really got it this year, that is true. But this club is in a really good position. It is a difficult time, obviously, but we are in a better position than other clubs I would say. I did not think about what happened in the past but what I can say is nobody has to worry about the future of the club because it is in good hands and has a really good team together.”

Mohamed Salah’s Liverpool future was under scrutiny before his angry reaction to being substituted against Chelsea. Salah’s agent, Ramy Abbas Issa, posted a cryptic tweet of a full stop during the game but Klopp claimed there would be no exodus of star talent should Liverpool fail to secure Champions League football.

“That is nothing we have to worry about,” the manager said. “I know we have loyalty from the players. It is not a situation where a player in the squad says: ‘We are not in the Champions League so I have to leave.’ That will not happen. I know them well enough to know that. The club is in a different situation and it will not be an issue with new players.

“We all expect more from us. I don’t feel that the team leaves me alone, standing in the fire. In this situation in Germany typically the CEO, or the president or the sporting director gives an interview and is asked: ‘Is he still the right coach?’ Then they have to say: ‘Yeah, yeah, we trust him’ and all those kinds of things. The first moment you have to say that then he is already halfway out the door.

“The situation in England is different, nobody above me speaks, but the situation in the club is pretty clear as well. The owners want me to sort the situation and I want to sort the situation with the players. That is the plan.”

[labourRed]

We're obviously not getting in next season but I think we'll struggle for fourth next season as well. Unless we buy big which we won't as potential buying clubs are mostly skint.

[Slinky Skills]

I'm going to be honest, Klopp should be worried here about losing some of that front line. Salah will be rightfully pissed off after being taken off and Mane and Firmino have both been poor so may want to leave. I do think a few may leave, some of have been here a while but we'll replace with talented like for like strikers I'm sure, we always have and always will.

[Mark79]

The time is coming to think about who to sell from them anyway. We can't keep all of them in to their 30s.