Liverpool manager hopes signings will provide fresh hunger but he needs strong backroom personalities around him, tooOn the opening weekend last season, Liverpool went to Fulham and, after twice falling behind, drew 2-2. Coming a week after the Community Shield win over Manchester City, the positive impression of Darwin Núñez seemed to be confirmed but the broader feeling was of doubt. Liverpool just didn’t look at it. They didn’t overwhelm Fulham physically as they had so many teams previously. Fabinho looked off the pace. Virgil van Dijk, such a commanding figure before then, was given a chasing by Aleksandar Mitrovic. Further doubts were raised about Trent Alexander‑Arnold’s defending.Early-season observations can be made to look very silly very quickly. Núñez did...
An ageing, tiring, injury-hit squad, a backroom in flux, a tactical mindset flagging – a great manager finds himself at a crossroadsAlmost all managerial lives end in failure. That’s the nature of the job, or at least of the way modern football tends to interpret it. You arrive and you win, or you are ousted. And if you win, you had better keep on winning, or you’ll be ousted.There are very few second acts in modern English football, at least not at the same club. Bill Shankly had one, defeat by Watford in the FA Cup in 1970 bringing him to the belated acceptance that his first great Liverpool side was over and he needed to build another. But that...
Spanish teenager was brave on the ball, as was Cody Gakpo, although Liverpool also enjoyed the luck against EvertonWell, they always say the form book goes out of the window on derby day. At the conclusion of this game, as Liverpool’s players shared backslaps and embraces on the pitch, as Jürgen Klopp strode over to the Kop to punch the air with his harpoon-fist, as Anfield buzzed to the strains of “going down, going down, going down”, it was possible to sense a curious and unfamiliar vibe around this place. Two-nil against Everton. Salah on the scoresheet. Was this … normality?Things have not felt normal at Liverpool for a while. It’s not just the football, which has been cold and...
The Liverpool manager is left trying to build a new era while continuing to win – it is possible if he is given timeWith 11 minutes left in this FA Cup fourth-round tie and the score 1-1 Jürgen Klopp could be seen racing out to the touchline, yanking the snood from his face and performing a series of furious scything gestures with his right arm, as though trying to break free from some invisible set of manacles.Klopp shrieked. He threw his head back. Just as quickly he stopped, crouched, and mooched back towards his seat. Nothing was really happening. Klopp was reacting to the shapes in his head, seeing danger, slackness, loose stitching in Cody Gakpo’s off-the-ball positioning during a...
Jürgen Klopp’s inability to reinforce their exhausted midfield was once again exposed in defeat at BrightonIt was at the very end of Jürgen Klopp’s post-match press conference at the Amex Stadium on Saturday that he was then asked the question most people in the room were probably thinking about asking themselves: was his decision to take off Jordan Henderson, Fabinho and Joël Matip as part of a quadruple substitution midway through the second half symbolic of this Liverpool team being past it?“It’s our fault you can ask this question, I understand it, but the changes have nothing to do with that,” Klopp said with characteristic defiance, but ultimately his demeanour gave him away. Head bowed, voice lowered, concern etched across...