Jürgen Klopp is still the right man for Liverpool - he remains the club's biggest asset
[article]Two passes. That was all it took to confirm that this was not going to be the day that things would change for Liverpool.
The first, from Naby Keïta, went backwards from the kick off. Nothing new there, of course. Standard practice in top-level football.
The second, from Joël Matip, went forwards. Nothing new there either. That’s the routine for most teams, and certainly for Liverpool. They spend all game hoping to control possession and secure the ball, but when they start the game with it, the first thing they do is send it long and try to pick up some scraps.
That’s the idea, anyway. Matip’s diagonal was, I presume, supposed to land somewhere in the final third, around the left corner of the Wolves penalty area. I’d imagine it was to be aimed at Darwin Núñez.
Instead, though, the ball was scuffed at waist height, like one of my five irons at Aintree driving range - I’ve started playing recently, so if I start working a few more golf analogies into my articles, please pull me up on it! - straight to Rúben Neves.
Wolves’ captain and best player, Neves, with no Liverpool man within five yards of him, was able to adjust comfortably and volley a first-time pass to Matheus Cunha in the Reds half. Liverpool soon won possession back, but within five seconds, a tone had been set, and not a good one.
Jürgen Klopp must be sick of the sight of these players at the moment. I know a lot of supporters are. They’ve given us some of the best days and nights of our lives, these lads, but that only makes what’s happening to them right now harder to fathom, and definitely harder to watch.
“Absolutely not allowed,” was how Klopp described the opening 12 minutes at Molineux, in which Liverpool proceeded to fall two goals down to a team which started the game in the relegation zone and which, even after a 3-0 win, has still scored fewer goals this season than any other Premier League team.
The start to the game, one imagines, will make up the bulk of Liverpool’s Monday analysis meeting at the AXA, and understandably so. Liverpool’s defending was, as Klopp put it, “horrible”, with Matip and Joe Gomez culpable for Wolves’ first goal and Gomez and Andy Robertson found wanting for the second. Even before and inbetween, there were chances for the home side to do further damage.
But
if Klopp really wants to test his players’ pride and provoke a reaction, he should show them not the first 12 minutes of the game, but the last four, as Wolves stroked the ball around the pitch in stoppage time unopposed, to loud, ironic cheers from their supporters.
That’s where this Liverpool team is right now. ‘Olé’d’ by Wolves, just as they were by Brentford and by Brighton. Everton are next. They couldn’t, could they?
They might, on this evidence.
The bottom line is that teams know if you work hard and do the basics right against Liverpool, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll win. For all of Klopp's talk of “small steps in the right direction” in recent weeks, it’s difficult to see any light at the end of the tunnel. Liverpool aren’t defending well, they aren’t attacking with conviction and the midfield is, well, the midfield. Stefan Bajcetic is a gem, but aside from that it’s a puzzle that only a few big cheques can solve.
It was a tetchy post-match press conference from Klopp, who rather unfairly chose to direct his ire at a colleague, but one with a fair few insights, considering it came so soon after the final whistle.
The team, he said, was bereft of confidence, although that shouldn’t stop them from defending sensibly and blocking the ball. The excuse of last season’s mammoth, 63-game effort, he added, had to be left behind. “How long do we want to suffer from that?” he asked, not unreasonably. “It’s February on my watch.”
The debate around his team’s struggles, he confirmed, is doing his head in as much as it is doing ours in. “I can’t hear it anymore,” Klopp said. “At the moment it’s always ‘if’, ‘if’, ‘if’...”
Most importantly, he stated, publicly, that he still has confidence - “absolutely” - in his ability to turn things around. And while he could hardly say anything else, that should offer some comfort to supporters, even those who had left well before the final whistle at Molineux, or those are starting to seriously doubt the direction the club is heading in.
Klopp is, along with the fans, Liverpool’s biggest asset, without question. It is he, and they, who have made the club what it is; attractive, respected, revered. A place excellent footballers want to play, a stadium which crackles with excitement and anticipation, a team that wins and entertains and connects with its public like few others ever could.
Those things might be broken at the moment, but with this man in charge they can be fixed, I’m convinced of that. It’ll take money, it’ll take changes and it’ll take some hard-nosed, sentiment-free decisions, maybe some more short-term pain too, but it can happen. If Arsenal can get something bubbling after where they’ve been, and if Manchester United can turn the tanker round, then so can Liverpool.
They still have, when all are fit and on song, a team that can compete with anybody. They still have time to work through this mess and find their levels again. They still have match-winners, stars, players whose quality, ego and professionalism won’t allow them to just give up and accept that 10th place is their lot. Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk messing about in the middle of the league? Come on.
But most importantly, they still have Klopp. The man who told you what he’d do and then did it. The man who made everything happen, everything possible. The man who conquered England, Europe, the whole bloody world.
The right man for Liverpool. Then, now and always. [/article]
