Interesting piece from the Guardian :
The closest parallel here is with Dortmund’s 2014-15 campaign, where a poor start, a World Cup-truncated pre-season, the departure of a star forward (Robert Lewandowski) and an autumn injury crisis sent Klopp’s side into a tailspin from which they could not extricate themselves. “Our football makes no sense,” Klopp moaned after a meek 2-1 defeat at Köln, and yet even as Dortmund went into freefall there was still little appetite for a change. After all, Klopp had enthusiastically signed a contract extension only the previous season. There were new forwards such as Ciro Immobile and Adrián Ramos who needed time to bed in. The footballing message remained the same. In retrospect, perhaps this became part of the problem.
No team as good as Liverpool can ever be truly “worked out”. What has changed is form and execution, confidence and sharpness, the little one-percenters that make all the difference when you are playing a high-energy, high-wire style of football. And the early evidence of this season suggests that on the simple measures of running, challenging and creating, Liverpool have sharply regressed. Not only that, but in many cases these are an acceleration of trends that were already becoming evident last season.
Pressures in the final third have dropped from 45 to 36. Carries into the final third have dropped from 18 to 12. Even fouls – a measure of the aggression and prejudice with which Liverpool sought to stop you playing – have dropped 25% from last season.
And yet Liverpool are seeing more of the ball: 70%, compared with 62-63% in each of the last four seasons.
All over the pitch, and indeed off it, Liverpool have traded safety for risk, entrenchment for engagement, conservatism for enterprise. Much has been made of the fact that Liverpool have barely made a misstep in the transfer market over the last few seasons. Which is a lot easier, of course, for as long as your strategy is so rigid and risk-averse that you barely make a step at all.
Perhaps the story of this Liverpool team is one that hit unimaginable peaks but has since failed to move forward, that haven’t really had the time to move forward, that haven’t had the time to do very much at all except keep the engine running, keep the lights on, keep turning up every three days.
Were this a smaller or a bigger club, Klopp might have had greater scope for reinvention: time to implement new ideas, time (and money) to refresh the squad, perhaps simply time to whisk everyone off to some gladed idyll and shoot the breeze in front of a roaring campfire. But here and now, this is all there is: a puffing red engine operating at the very limits of its capacity.
The closest parallel here is with Dortmund’s 2014-15 campaign, where a poor start, a World Cup-truncated pre-season, the departure of a star forward (Robert Lewandowski) and an autumn injury crisis sent Klopp’s side into a tailspin from which they could not extricate themselves. “Our football makes no sense,” Klopp moaned after a meek 2-1 defeat at Köln, and yet even as Dortmund went into freefall there was still little appetite for a change. After all, Klopp had enthusiastically signed a contract extension only the previous season. There were new forwards such as Ciro Immobile and Adrián Ramos who needed time to bed in. The footballing message remained the same. In retrospect, perhaps this became part of the problem.
No team as good as Liverpool can ever be truly “worked out”. What has changed is form and execution, confidence and sharpness, the little one-percenters that make all the difference when you are playing a high-energy, high-wire style of football. And the early evidence of this season suggests that on the simple measures of running, challenging and creating, Liverpool have sharply regressed. Not only that, but in many cases these are an acceleration of trends that were already becoming evident last season.
Pressures in the final third have dropped from 45 to 36. Carries into the final third have dropped from 18 to 12. Even fouls – a measure of the aggression and prejudice with which Liverpool sought to stop you playing – have dropped 25% from last season.
And yet Liverpool are seeing more of the ball: 70%, compared with 62-63% in each of the last four seasons.
All over the pitch, and indeed off it, Liverpool have traded safety for risk, entrenchment for engagement, conservatism for enterprise. Much has been made of the fact that Liverpool have barely made a misstep in the transfer market over the last few seasons. Which is a lot easier, of course, for as long as your strategy is so rigid and risk-averse that you barely make a step at all.
Perhaps the story of this Liverpool team is one that hit unimaginable peaks but has since failed to move forward, that haven’t really had the time to move forward, that haven’t had the time to do very much at all except keep the engine running, keep the lights on, keep turning up every three days.
Were this a smaller or a bigger club, Klopp might have had greater scope for reinvention: time to implement new ideas, time (and money) to refresh the squad, perhaps simply time to whisk everyone off to some gladed idyll and shoot the breeze in front of a roaring campfire. But here and now, this is all there is: a puffing red engine operating at the very limits of its capacity.
