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Poll Boss tha: Jurgen Klopp's first year

Prefix for Poll Threads

Klopp– the Messiah or another false prophet?

  • Messiah!!

    Votes: 50 78.1%
  • False Prophet- stone him!!

    Votes: 4 6.3%
  • The pointy fence is up my arse

    Votes: 10 15.6%

  • Total voters
    64
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doctor_mac

My cowboy name is Garland Justice
Moderator
Well, I still can't believe we've got him. He's perfect for us, he's been talked about for years as both a quality manager and a passionate guy, and he has come here, and for me, I just think he's perfect. If we can't win the title with Klopp,it won't happen until we become a trillionaire's plaything. He is our last chance of doing it as a proper club,if that we still are.

What have you got to say about Klopp? What will he do with us?
 
He's unreal. Humble yet determined enough to get our players playing for each other and playing well.

And all without having to say character every week
 
He's unreal. Humble yet determined enough to get our players playing for each other and playing well.

And all without having to say character every week

Or misusing 'synonymous'. Klopp doesn't know the word. Good.
 
I can't think of a better manager we could have gotten. He's a perfect fit. Him being relatively young is a huge bonus too.
I wouldn't hide my admiration of him like @Woland . I'd finger him in public.
 
His teeth are the opposite of Mr Rodgers teeth.
 
I like him, I hope he has a great Xmas. And I hope he sees in the New Year in traditional German fashion by having a tom tit on his wife's face whilst wearing suspenders and pulling the suede off it. All the best Jurgen, thanks for the memories.
 
He's without a doubt the perfect manager for us, let's hope he wins many trophies with us too.
 
I'd reach around and give him a second digit.
I'd go gung ho move you both out the way and handball him..

Love the fella.. Absolute breath of fresh air..

Handles the media, honest, humble yet passionate.. A real man manager.. He has lifted the place to another level, transferred his passion and enthusiasm to the players on the pitch..

We look a real team at the moment.. The rest of the premier league are in awe over actually what we have here... Win a few trophies and cement ourselves in Europe again, the players we want will be falling over themselves to come and join us..

What he has done to what many deemed as our failed signings is quite remarkable. Re inventing players and how they play and their positions, these kinda things are what makes him such a good manager..
 
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Delighted to have him. Every club in Europe would have taken Klopp as their manager and WE got him.
Martinez and Rodgers were our best options when we last changed manager. This time around Klopp and Ancelotti were clubless. Some difference.
 
What he has done to what many deemed as our failed signings is quite remarkable. Re inventing players and how they play and their positions, these kinda things are what makes him such a good manager..

Clyne, Lallana, Lovren, Milner, Can, Coutinho, Sturridge and Henderson were already good players for us and/or their previous clubs, Firmino & Origi were new to the country and took a few months to settle, which is natural. Look at Ozil and some of United's signings. Nothing new there. We had a good basis of a squad with some really good players, let's not get dragged into this rubbish about him polishing turds, because practically every Liverpool manager in recent years has inherrited a relatively strong squad that wasn't far away from challenging.

People said Suarez carried that squad a few years ago, the only real addition this time is Mane. So what we lacked was a catalyst again, like what most top teams have. It's not really a reflection on the quality of the other players. We've always had a player like that when we've been successful or close to winning stuff. It's your Gerrard's that dragged us over the line in finals like the ones we lost last season.

Klopp has done brilliantly to get us back to the level we were at a couple of seasons ago and he's the most likeable, charasmatic and passionate manager around. Perfect for Liverpool and for the fans. Our progress has been great this season, long may it continue.
 
I don't think there was a better manager than him available, and while I would never underplay the attraction of Liverpool to a manager (well, not one like Guardiola, who only wants to manage the best and richest squads in any league) it is still a bit amazing that we got him.

And that sentiment, with a lot of jealousy, seems to be what most other fans think too

But all of that will make no difference if we don't win anything
 
I don't think there was a better manager than him available, and while I would never underplay the attraction of Liverpool to a manager (well, not one like Guardiola, who only wants to manage the best and richest squads in any league) it is still a bit amazing that we got him.

And that sentiment, with a lot of jealousy, seems to be what most other fans think too

But all of that will make no difference if we don't win anything

Keeping in mind our on field performance from the last few years, having Klopp as a manager, gives us the best opportunity to win trophies for all the reasons mentioned already. If we don't win trophies regularly in the next few years, than i guess the only option remaining will be to be bought out by some billionaire like City & Chelsea who is going to continue to pump ridiculous amounts of cash into the squad.
 
Keeping in mind our on field performance from the last few years, having Klopp as a manager, gives us the best opportunity to win trophies for all the reasons mentioned already. If we don't win trophies regularly in the next few years, than i guess the only option remaining will be to be bought out by some billionaire like City & Chelsea who is going to continue to pump ridiculous amounts of cash into the squad.

I don't think we will win trophies regularly under FSG regardless of who is manager.

But at the moment, I can't think of a manager I would prefer.
 
Keeping in mind our on field performance from the last few years, having Klopp as a manager, gives us the best opportunity to win trophies for all the reasons mentioned already. If we don't win trophies regularly in the next few years, than i guess the only option remaining will be to be bought out by some billionaire like City & Chelsea who is going to continue to pump ridiculous amounts of cash into the squad.

Pretty much. I think this is our best shot at regular success, if we don't do it under Klopp then I don't see many other candidates who are better on paper. If we don't manage it this time, then it really is a question of bridging the financial gap. Like I've always said though, I'd rather us win it by gradually assembling a good squad through actually spotting a good player (cf Coutinho, Firmino, Can, Matip), than by just tossing top dollar around on players everyone knows everything about.
 
I don't think we will win trophies regularly under FSG regardless of who is manager.

But at the moment, I can't think of a manager I would prefer.

Is it FSG you have an issue with or their type of ownership model vs the billionaire backer.

I believe overall they have been good owners (accounting for the obvious missteps they have made), who have consistently invested on and off the field.
 
Pretty much. I think this is our best shot at regular success, if we don't do it under Klopp then I don't see many other candidates who are better on paper. If we don't manage it this time, then it really is a question of bridging the financial gap. Like I've always said though, I'd rather us win it by gradually assembling a good squad through actually spotting a good player (cf Coutinho, Firmino, Can, Matip), than by just tossing top dollar around on players everyone knows everything about.

Ideally nothing like building within your means and winning, however is it realistic in today's environment competing against City, Chelsea and the financial juggernaut that UTD have now become. Occasionally winning trophies is quite possible but sustained success is going to be near impossible unless we can compete on equal financial grounds.

The question is how to bridge the financial gap. Getting bought out is the obvious solution, however i feel there is still quite a bit of room to increase existing revenue streams especially on the commercial & merchandising side, however the key for that to happen would be participating in CL consistently. It seems like we have a good commercial team now in place and hopefully when we play in the CL consistently in the coming years they will be able leverage it to the max
 
The making of Jurgen Klopp: How humble Black Forest origins shaped Liverpool manager

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Klopp has made quite an impact on the Premier League
7 OCTOBER 2016 • 7:00AM
In the little town of Glatten, nestled in the Black Forest, the locals say that the character of Jürgen Klopp, their most famous son, was shaped by his environment, although on a clear autumn day amid its quiet streets and unassuming people, it can be hard to see how that might be the case.
The Liverpool manager reaches one year in the job today and his impact on the Premier League has been significant: a demanding coach, a wisecracking post-match interviewee, a man-hugger extraordinaire and, most of all, a manager who has built a side who could challenge for the title. In Glatten, the seed was planted and the boy who would go on to win two Bundesliga titles at Borussia Dortmund, before eventually moving to Liverpool, took his first steps in the game.
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The 1976 youth team of SV Glutten. Klopp is fourth from the right in the back row CREDIT:THOMAS KIENZLE
For the full picture to emerge, it takes a conversation with one of his two older sisters, Isolde Reich, and her husband, Kurt, who can explain the full Klopp family story and the factors that influenced young Jürgen. The Reichs are friendly, patient people and when the photographer and I turn up at their home, which doubles as Isolde’s hair salon, she checks her schedule and asks if we would mind coming back in an hour.
An hour later, with the family photos spread out on the kitchen table, discussion turns to Jürgen’s tactile side, that tendency to gather up his players in embraces in the aftermath of victory, as he did at Stamford Bridge after the win over Chelsea last month. “Going to people and being like that – he gets that from my father,” Isolde says. “He was exactly the same.”
klopptash-xlarge_trans++XQXPAqBDiaDRccCapAXMMv9OeoYGZmePWsTvlGEiYZQ.jpg

CREDIT: THOMAS KIENZLE
Norbert Klopp is the much-missed patriarch of the family who died aged 67 in 2000 after a three-year battle with cancer.
It was Norbert and his wife Elisabeth, who still lives in Glatten, who would drive Jürgen to training 20 miles away in Ergenzingen when he joined the best youth team in the area. It was Norbert who, Kurt explains, was the driving force in his son’s development as a footballer but never lived to see him become a coach in 2001 at Mainz, the club at which Jürgen spent his whole professional playing career.
“He [Norbert] was very proud of Jürgen,” Kurt says. “He would say that to other people but he wasn’t one for telling you ‘well done’ all the time.
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Jurgen Klopp's father, Norbert CREDIT: THOMAS KIENZLE
"He focused Jürgen on the things that were not so good. He criticised him a little bit and kept his feet on the ground. We have the phrase here, ‘the hair in the soup’ – it is about the small things that are not so good.
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General view of the Glatten town where Jurgen Klopp is from
“It was probably necessary to push him when he was younger. After that, Jürgen made it by himself. Norbert and Elisabeth spent a lot of time every day driving him to his new club, TuS Ergenzingen, and from there Jürgen’s career took off.”
The pride in Jürgen, is clear and the family were careful to select for The Daily Telegraph only the pictures they thought he would approve of. It is not hard to spot the physical similarities with his father, who worked his whole life for the local company Fischer as a rawlplug salesman, a dedicated grafter who took his loyalty to the firm’s boss, Artur Fischer, very seriously.
“He identified with the company really deeply,” Kurt says. “It was a family-owned company and he was close to Artur. It is a global player now but that was not the case back then. Norbert took four weeks’ holiday a year and the rest of the time he was working.”
The players that Jurgen Klopp made world classPlay!01:36

The similarities with Jürgen, he says, are plain for the family to see. “He works really hard – a workaholic really. You have to be to do that kind of job well.”
Jürgen left the family home in Glatten when he finished his arbitur – the German equivalent of A-levels. At 20, he first moved to Pforzheim to play for a club there. From there, he went to a series of amateur clubs in Frankfurt while he also studied for a university degree in sports business.
He signed for Mainz in 1990, aged 23, and played there as a striker and eventually a centre-half, until he became manager 11 years later.
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Souvenirs of Klopp are seen in the clubhouse of SV Glatten CREDIT: THOMAS KIENZIE
“He himself has said that he was not the best footballer, although he did score four in a game once,” Kurt says. “He always hoped Mainz would get promoted to the Bundesliga but it never happened until he was manager. He tells us that sometimes he is a dreamer when it comes to football. He always says that he is so happy that his hobby also happens to be his job.”
As a teenager, Jürgen would occasionally go to Stuttgart, the nearest big city to Glatten, to watch the club he supported, VfB Stuttgart, although it was playing rather than watching with which he was preoccupied. He once had a trial at VfB but was not asked back. “Those kind of setbacks built his character,” Kurt says.
Norbert was also a promising footballer, a goalkeeper who played for Kaiserslautern’s junior teams and grew up in the austerity of post-war West Germany earning money when a teenager as a feintaschner – making bags and wallets out of leather.
Elisabeth’s family were from Glatten and in the past owned the local Schwanenbräu brewery which, like many small independents in modern Germany, have been swallowed up by the major names.
Although it is a member of their family who has sprinkled the stardust on Glatten, the Reichs are notably understated and will visit Anfield for the first time this month.
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Ulrich Rath was the first manager Jurgen Klopp played under CREDIT: THOMAS KIENZLE
Kurt works as a salesman for a packaging machine company and there is a steady stream of clients for Isolde’s hairdressers. We bid them farewell and head over to see Ulrich Rath, the first manager for whom Jürgen played.
The 75-year-old, who is honorary president of SV Glatten, is such a well-known figure in the town that when we pop into the town hall, Tore-Derek Pfeifer insists on introducing us personally to see Rath. Pfeifer is the mayor of Glatten, although the German word for it, bürgermeister, is much better.
Rath founded the junior teams of SV Glatten, the town’s club which Jürgen played for alongside his best friend, Rath’s younger son, Harti. In the pictures of that Glatten boys’ team from the mid-1970s, golden years for West German football, Klopp is immediately recognisable even without the glasses.
“Our first match, Jürgen was chasing a long ball and crashed into the goalkeeper,” Ulrich remembers. “He broke his collar bone and dislocated his shoulder but he still came to the next match. He ended up ballboy. You could see how desperate he was to be involved, to do something. He was eight years old.”
Ulrich gets emotional when he talks about Jürgen ringing him from Liverpool to speak to him on his 75th birthday in January. It was in Ulrich’s house in Glatten, with magnificent views across the valley, that he says Jürgen and Harti would have teenage parties in the basement. The boys learnt to ski together and both Jürgen and Harti went on to play for TuS Ergenzingen.
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Klopp is celebrating a year at Anfield CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
Harti is godfather to Klopp’s son Marc, 26, from his first marriage, and all the Raths are off to Liverpool next month for the first time to see a game.
“From his father, Jürgen gets his temperament and his eloquence,” Ulrich says. “And the quietness and the humility he gets from this region.” He points out the big windows of his living room. “From the Black Forest.”
The last stop is TuS Ergenzingen, the club Jürgen joined at the age of 16. He played there until he was 20, finally leaving the club and the family home in Glatten to embark on the career that would take him to Pforzheim, Eintract Frankfurt II, Viktoria Sindlingen, Rot-Weiss Frankfurt and then Mainz. At Ergenzingen, one of Jürgen’s old team-mates, Paco Garcia, is out on the training pitches coaching the under-18s.
Garcia, 49, who works in the Mercedes-Benz factory in nearby Sindelfingen, played one season, 1984-1985, with Jürgen and remembers a striker who was unusually quick for his height.
“He was a really cool type of guy, a good character. He was very human, very emotional. He always wanted to win … there were a couple of players who were better than him but he had that will to win and focus to do it.”
By the time Jürgen’s professional playing career finally took off at Mainz, he was 23. He had battled his way through four amateur clubs. He had graduated from university. He was a father.
He occasionally comes back to Glatten and they held a big celebration for him when he won his first league title with
Dortmund in 2011. It is there, deep in the Black Forest, that they appreciate best just how far their boy has had to come to establish himself as one of the leading coaches in Europe.
 
Something in it gives me a headache. Think it's the sponge, Arctic Roll is the same.

And Vienetta. Although that has no sponge.

80s desserts were a total disaster for me.
 
20. On losing the 2013 Champions League final: “The only thing I can say is that it was great. London is the town of the Olympic Games. The weather was good, everything is OK. Only the result is sh*t.”
19. On his playing days: “I never succeeded in bringing to the field what was going on in my brain. I had the talent for the fifth division, and the mind for the Bundesliga. The result was a career in the second division.”
18. On winning at least one trophy in four years at Liverpool: “When I sit here in four years I would say we won one title. If not next time [I will manage] in Switzerland.”
17. On rumours of Mats Hummels joining Manchester United: “If that’s not a bullsh*t story, I’ll eat a broomstick.”
16. On Bayern Munich: “We have a bow and arrow and if we aim well, we can hit the target. The problem is that Bayern has a bazooka. But then Robin Hood was quite successful.”
15. On purple bins: “We had a good plan in the first half but conceded two goals, so you can throw your plan in the purple bin.”
14. On Dortmund’s poor 2014: “The best news today is that football is over for 2014, any criticism that we receive now is justified. We are standing here like complete idiots and it’s completely our own fault.”
13. On beating Bayern 5-2 in the German Cup final in 2012: “It could have been a bit warmer.”
12. On Bayern Munich again: “At the moment, they are like the Chinese in the business world. They look at what others are doing and copy it, just with more money.”
11. On remaining discreet in public: “In extreme situations, you have to think fast. At one of my mates’ stag parties, we all dressed up as Father Christmas – fully masked.”
10. On Arsene Wenger: “He likes having the ball, playing football, passes. It’s like an orchestra. But it’s a silent song. I like heavy metal.”
9. On his wife: “She wrote a book for children. It’s like Harry Potter – but it’s about football. There’s no Harry Potter flying on his f***ing stick – just football.”
8. On an Alberto Moreno goal being ruled out in a defeat to Newcastle: “We made our goal but because we weren’t good enough today the linesman thought: ‘Well, you don’t make world class goals if you play this sh*t’.”
7. On losing to Crystal Palace – the only defeat in his first ten Liverpool games: “I would really like to change my personality, but I can’t forget this f***ing loss against Crystal Palace.”
6. On Henrikh Mkhitaryan: “Mkhitaryan fits us like an arse on a bucket. What he offers is exactly what we need.”
5. On Mario Gotze: “Gotze has gone because he is Guardiola‘s personal chosen signing and he wants to play with Guardiola, in his style. It’s my fault. I can’t make myself 15cm shorter or start speaking Spanish.”
4. On Barcelona: “I show my team very often Barcelona but not the way they play. Just the way they celebrate goals. Goal no 5768 in the last few weeks and they go ‘Yeeeess’ like they never scored a goal. This is what I love about football. That’s what you have to feel all the time. Until you die. And then everything is OK.”
3. On explaining to a Schalke fan how to win the Bundesliga: “How do you explain to a blind person what colour is?”
2. On himself: “The problem with my life is that I’ve said too much sh*t in the past and no-one forgets it.”
1. On his first red card as a manager: “I’m a bit proud of my first red card as a coach. I approached the fourth official and said: ‘How many mistakes are allowed here? If it’s 15, you have one more.'”
 
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