When Liverpool lost the Champions League final to Real Madrid in May 2018 they could’ve been forgiven for letting their heads drop and perhaps finding themselves in a slump of confidence, but this Liverpool team and manager are made of sterner stuff. After Ramos’ dirty tactics and one or two goalkeeping howlers from Loris Karius there was only really one way Liverpool could bunch back and snatch some justice, they’d have to come back the following year and win the thing. Simple.
Klopp responded in the summer with a typically smart transfer. Liverpool badly needed a keeper and thankfully one lesson Klopp has learned from our past is that going for second best is a false economy, so Liverpool dug deep and signed Alisson Becker for a world record fee, for a goalkeeper, of around £65m. Seems like a snip now!
This is a very important point about Klopp – he has transformed Liverpool not just via an excellent footballing philosophy, the best motivational skills in football management and the ability to improve players beyond recognition, but he’s also looked at the mistakes of the past and realised that buying second rate players was not going to cut it. Liverpool had been making the mistake of signing quantity over quality for well over a decade. If the money wasn’t available for the very best then every manager from Houiller to Benitez and Rodgers went for second best. Klopp realised that this was futile and thought it was better to save what money we did have and wait. This tactic, more than any other, is the reason why Liverpool are currently dominating clubs with endless financial reserves. See the signings of Allison and VVD for the outworkings of this. These signings have awoken the sleeping giant that is Liverpool FC.
From the start of the 2018/19 season Liverpool were like a machine, crushing Premier League and Champions League opposition alike. They’d go on to triumph in the Champions League final against Tottenham in June 2019, and only a miracle run of 14 consecutive wins at the end of the season by Man City denied them the title. This represented more pain for Liverpool and their fans, but this time they were European Champions.
When considering the previous paragraph, is it any wonder that Liverpool would start the 2019/20 season like a steam train? This is a team who dealt with defeat in a Champions League final by winning it the following year, a team that were only denied the title by a miracle 14 game, end of season, winning streak. In hindsight, it seems pretty clear that Man City were in serious trouble.
Liverpool started the 2019/20 season with huge motivation, massive belief and bags of talent. They had Man City on the run, they still do, and it shows. We have Bernardo Silva constantly jabbering about the club on Twitter and his manager never stops thinking and talking about the Reds. This is after their players were filmed singing about our fans being battered in the street. A reference to a Liverpool fan who was beaten to within an inch of his life outside Anfield by Roma fans.
Liverpool marched to the title with win after win in the Premier League. It was the most comfortable title win ever. They finally had a complete team. They had the best keeper and the best centre half in England, and the best fullbacks too. This point is constantly overlooked when comparing Man City and Liverpool. Yes, City have an amazingly talented midfield and forward line, but Liverpool’s back five is much, much, better. City win lots of games comfortably, but this is interspersed with fairly consistent upsets. Arsenal under Wenger, anyone?
Winger was stubborn and refused to compromise on his free flowing, attacking, game. Pep is currently doing the same, he refuses to set up even slightly more conservatively at Anfield every year, and duly gets punished for it. Klopp, on the other hand, was only too happy to change his approach once it became clear that we couldn’t win the big prizes while conceding endless goals against all and sundry. Klopp was pragmatic and changed tac, and it paid off big time, and that is Klopp’s biggest asset, he’s a very smart cookie.
So What Now?
Well the Coronavirus has thrown a major spanner in the works. It has undoubtedly caused us some pain. Warner would be a Liverpool player by now and we would have comfortably beaten that 100 point record in the Premier League!
There’s a lot of talk about Liverpool not spending money this window, but I wouldn’t be overly concerned. Right now, Corona rules the world. If the virus goes bad again it’s not just a lack of match day revenue that is a problem, it’s TV broadcasting and shirt sponsorship deals too. If a huge second wave comes then the season is bound to be scrapped early on. Almost every penny coming into football clubs could be stopped. For Liverpool, with a wage bill of £320 million, that could be a huge disaster. Probably not a great time to be splashing 80 or 90 million on players. After all, we have a superb squad and the best manager in the world. We are Champions!
It’s time to be patient, it’s time to be smart again.
