Midfield
innovation, late goals and added spikiness key to sixth Champions League and the
path to Premier League glory. German boss Jurgen Klopp has been signed to the club
until 2024 by owners Fenway Sports Group. Football enthusiasts around the world
can obtain Premier
League Tickets online to enjoy its superb
performances.
Golden years rarely come with more luster
than Liverpool’s 2019. Jurgen Klopp’s team have taken the Kop on a thrilling
ride. The most exciting thing about life at Anfield is that it feels like the
start of something special, not the climax of a long journey.
In June, Klopp’s team brought the UEFA
Champions League trophy back to Merseyside for the sixth time. On Saturday,
victory over Flamengo in the Club World Cup in Qatar would see Liverpool
crowned global champions. The possibilities seem endless.
Remarkably, the year started with a
reverse, Liverpool’s last loss in the league.
The 2-1 defeat by Manchester City at
the Etihad on January 3 was a costly setback Pep Guardiola’s team went on to
win the title by a single point – but it was clear the margins separating the
two best sides in the Premier League were tight. The balance began to tip in
Liverpool’s favor that night. The conditions were set up for success for a
number of reasons.
Management
Klopp is the focal point of
everything that happens and German is the perfect fit for the club. His inspirational
presence and energy lift the players and the crowd. This side of the
52-year-old’s character sometimes distracts from how deeply he thinks about the
game. When he arrived at Anfield four years ago, Klopp had a reputation for favoring
a high-energy pressing game – “Heavy metal football,” as he called it.
Liverpool’s approach this year has
been much more subtle, with more selective pressing. The style of play has
changed and the rest of the Premier
League has not caught up with it. Klopp has been pragmatic,
designing his systems to suit his players rather than forcing square pegs into
round holes.
Tactics
Full backs are traditionally the
least glamorous outfield positions but Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy
Robertson have become the creative powerhouses of the team.
No opponents have been able to neutralize
them. But it is not simply a matter of letting the wide defenders range
forward. For the team’s structure to work, it needed a fundamental change in
the way the midfield operates. Central players have traditionally been the
engine room of the best teams. In Klopp’s system, they have had to largely
forego the roles generally assigned to midfielders surging runs, goalscoring
raids and determining the tempo of play.
For this team, their job is to give the
side balance, fill space when the full-backs surge upfield and bolster the
defense. This is not midfield play as we know it. If the team was split into
categories, the front three Mo Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane and the
full-backs comprise the creative group.
Personnel
Fenway Sports Group (FSG) has been
magnificent in backing Klopp and changed the way they operate at his behest.
Before Klopp arrived, Liverpool looked for young, undervalued players and tried
to make the club a place where up-and-coming stars knew they could develop
their game.
Unfortunately, that meant Anfield was
a staging post rather than a destination. The change came when FSG sanctioned
spending big money Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker. Both are experienced
leaders with real presence.
Takumi Minamino, who has signed for
£7.25 million from Salzburg, is the sort of player FSG has targeted over the
years but once he would have come into an inexperienced team struggling to
punch their weight. It would have been more difficult to find his feet in
England. Now he can be eased in and develop naturally, giving him more chance
of becoming a success.
FSG has also been astute in extending
Klopp’s contract until 2024.
Mentality
Liverpool is hard to beat because
they do not ease off, even when a game seems beyond rescue. The number of late
goals – the latest coming in stoppage time of the 2-1 Club World Cup semi-final
victory over Monterrey this week attests to this. The greatest example, though,
was the 4-0 win over Barcelona in the Champions League after trailing by three
goals from the first leg.
It looked an impossible task but
Klopp’s team attacked the game as if it was still 0-0. Across the squad, there
is relentlessness and conviction that has allowed them to claw out results even
in games where they have been hanging on for spells. Klopp calls them
“Mentality monsters.” It is hard to disagree with.
Spikiness
After Luis Suarez left Anfield,
Liverpool was a soft touch. They could be outmuscled and intimidated at times.
When the run of play was going against them, they let things continue instead
of committing tactical fouls to break up the opposition’s rhythm. Sergio Ramos
was allowed to dominate proceedings unchallenged in the Champions League final
in Kyiv last year.
That no longer happens. Liverpool has
become more physical when it is needed and less respectful of their rivals.
This new approach was summed up when Robertson slapped Messi on the head at
Anfield. The best teams have a seam of sidedness. Klopp’s men have grown much
more confident in the game’s dark arts over the past 12 months.
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Tickets through our online ticketing marketplace.
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