Normal service was gradually beginning to resume at Liverpool for the first few weeks of Jurgen Klopp’s tenure. A sense of excitement had begun to bubble as he arrived into town, and there was a heady air of optimism that this extraordinary, ordinary man could usher in a new era of success.
At least, that’s what the Reds’ starry-eyed contingent had started to believe at first.
Had they finally found the sparkling dugout personality to match the club’s beacon mentality?
Entering to much fanfare and wonder, with dazzling white choppers glinting against the popping flash-bolts, it was almost as if pundits and intrigued neutrals alike had built him up into some sort of myth; a fabled travelling magician come to town to chant incantations and work mysterious miracles to dispel the club’s misfortunes.
It wouldn’t have been unimaginable had they announced that his chartered flight had arrived with bag of tricks and glamorous assistant in tow. Thankfully, they stopped just shy of it.
Nevertheless, many were enthralled, entranced even, by his eccentric persona and with the exception of Leicester City’s Claudio Ranieri, it was easy to imagine why nearly any Premier League club would have desperately loved to swap managers for a taste of the wisdom, singularity and inspiration that Klopp was scheduled to bring to the fore at Anfield.
While proactive personalities aren’t always admired in the British game (a notion epitomised by Tony Pulis’ rubbishing of philosophies) it would be unfair to overly-criticise the way Klopp has gone about his business. Yes, he has overseen a few hiccoughs against Newcastle United, Watford, Manchester United and others but this has been a topsy-turvy season for even the most experienced of coaches so it’s not that surprising.
Most won’t admit that out loud, of course, but football fans are a pretty stubborn bunch at the best of times.
Transformation more important than statistics
His tenure has been far from a utopian one in the red half of Merseyside but perfection was never really a viable option going into it. After all, he has only recently inherited someone else’s squad, so the German tactician was always going to need time to iron out the creases, snip away the frills and put his own mark on proceedings.
However, that is slowly starting to filter through.
His team have created the most amount of Premier League chances (per Squawka) since he was appointed – but possess one of the lowest conversion rates. Despite this, their recent purchase of promising playmaker Marko Grujic promises a turnaround in this department. Sure, things haven’t gone according to anybody’s idealistic plan but there is absolutely no need for fans to panic, something Klopp himself will do his best to ensure as 2016 develops.
More important than statistics is the less transparent mutation going on under the surface. After all, it’s hard to argue he hasn’t tried to make the most of his arrival during his 20-plus games in charge to date. He’s stirred things up and has inveigled a worthy response from all quarters of the Premier League.
In that sense, it really has been a whirlwind start for the German coach, and he has done his utmost to use that sudden jolt to gather momentum. Getting things moving again after taking charge in the midst of a fairly turgid period was always going to be the main aim.
Drastically lifting the spirits of nearly every fan and player associated with the club so that they can finally start to think outside the mundane normality of struggling from one week to another is also still surely high on the agenda.
No doubt, it is Klopp’s objective to ensure that the hope of change and improvement is no longer in vain as it once was under the now oft-derided Brendan Rodgers. Indeed, for a time, he transformed the booming cynics into bashful whisperers and temporarily banished the gloom of despair that had been clinging so defiantly to the Reds.
Yes, stumbling blocks remain in place, but optimism should patchily manifest itself amongst the terraced masses in the coming weeks and if he gets the players he wants in the next few months, it’ll be thanks in large part to the self-styled sophistication of one bespectacled man.
Collaborative mindset taking hold
In a way, Klopp has cocooned his players – not from any sobering realisations about what needs to be done – but, by offering them an alternative perspective. By putting an arm around his players, offering them a smile and generally just treating them like human beings, he has cultivated an atmosphere of altruism and spirit amongst the squad.
Superimposing his previous philosophies onto the Reds’ identity has not been easy, but he has nonetheless managed to maintain the passion, pride and practicality that all mean so much to the club while pushing for a level of tactical astuteness and audacity that has rarely been seen since the oft-maligned latter days of Rafael Benitez’s topsy-turvy tenure.
What’s more, the players are buying into it in a very public way, as epitomised by Jordan Henderson’s belief (via Liverpool Echo) in what Klopp is trying to implement.
Klopp is changing things, but he’s not losing touch with what’s important, and history tells us he never will. What he achieved at Borussia Dortmund will go down in Die Schwarzgelben folklore as one of the best periods the club will ever enjoy.
The way he manufactured a considerably competitive mindset to challenge the overwhelming autocracy of Bayern Munich for a number of seasons gave the “Normal One” just rewards for such an amazing reinvention of the club, but it also bestowed him with the necessary honours to allow him to continue implementing his own visions.
He’s not going to earn his keep by laughing his way through Melwood training sessions, of course, and he’s attempted to infuse the highly-effective system of “gegenpressing” into the team’s match-day objectives. Not only this, but he has experimented with his front three options (even in the face of injuries and an underwhelming bench) and has looked to get his players playing more proactive football.
Already, then, he has given the players specific goals to focus on, and is quickly getting on with what he does best. What’s more, he’s centred on the immediacy of his own club, distancing himself from an unwanted siege mentality and has opted, instead, to heal from within, to bind together as a group and to reinstate the resilience and righteousness that once felt so familiar to Liverpool fans and players alike.
Magnificent spectacle is one to follow
Another manager might well have shrunk at the prospect of taking control at such an iconic institution; they could have tried to adapt and change themselves to suit the resources at their disposal; or they might well have taken an impersonal approach, vocally lambasting the players for the way they had let the club down in the months prior to his appointment.
That’s just not Klopp’s style. Instead, he has enabled himself to become a figurehead, someone to look to in the face of adversity. Indeed, that was perhaps best summed up in the way he led the team in applauding the fans for staying on to push them over the line for a late equaliser against a stubborn West Bromwich Albion outfit in December.
That urge to squeeze the most out of his players might not be reaping rewards right now but it could make all the difference as the season wears on.
Despite his personal aversion to normality more so than that of the football messiah, he has helped give most people a few reasons to follow him.
Pulling them along with a smile and a warm embrace, the 48-year-old tactician has not yet achieved the status of a legacy-crafting genius in England but he is certainly proving himself as the modern game’s everyman and he has the capacity to turn things around.
