It might have seemed
sacrilege a few weeks ago, but somebody, somewhere, is asking the question now.
Is Jurgen Klopp really all he's cracked up to be?
First it was seven points.
Then it was four. Then it was one, and now it's minus one. Liverpool's
lead at the top of the table has melted in recent weeks.
Where was Klopp's tactical
genius as he failed to outwit Leicester and West Ham? Where was his heavy metal
football, his brilliance as a motivator, as they trudged to dreary 0-0 draws in
two major derbies?
The questions are grossly
unfair, but they are not unfamiliar to the Liverpool manager. It is an
unfortunate by-product of his likeability. There will always be someone who,
when the chips are down, accuses of him of being a fraud, nothing more than the
class clown.
'A lot of people still
think Klopp is just a motivator, a people-person and a good-mood-bear,' wrote Der Spiegel back in 2011. 'But if Dortmund's
young team really do win the title, it won't be because of his qualities as an
entertainer.'
Klopp's young Dortmund
team did win the title that year. They won the Double the next year and reached
the Champions League final the year after that. Yet Klopp has never been quite
able to shake the notion that he is a better entertainer than he is a football
coach.
Much of that has to do
with a supposed lack of ruthlessness. Klopp has a famously poor record in cup
finals, and as a sense of foreboding settles over Merseyside this week, many
will suspect that perhaps he just doesn't have the killer instinct, the ability
to push his teams over the line
The only flaw in that
argument is that, in 2011 and 2012, he did push his teams over the line. In
both years, Dortmund established a lead at the top of the table and held onto
it.
So why are Liverpool
bottling it now? Were Klopp's Dortmund more ruthless and hard-headed than
Klopp's Liverpool?
Probably not, but much has
changed since 2011. The relentless running and ferocious press of Klopp's teams
was, at that time, still something of a novelty. Even as teams worked it out,
it was harder for them to resist.
In the Premier League
almost a decade later, opponents are cleverer, and Klopp has had to be more
inventive. Where Dortmund could simply shock teams into submission, Liverpool
must struggle with constantly changing gameplans.
In 2010, meanwhile, nobody
had Dortmund down as serious title contenders. Klopp had guided them to two top
six finishes in his first two years, and they were undoubtedly a team on the
rise. But the title was a mere pipe dream.
The side which swept
through the Bundesliga in that heady first season was freed of all expectation.
With an average age of 23, it was led by precocious young talents such as Nuri
Sahin, Mats Hummels and Mario Gotze, desperate to show off their ability but
under very little pressure.
'Bayern will win the
title, chased by Schalke, Wolfsburg and Bremen,' declared Klopp at the start of
the season. 'We want to land somewhere near where we did last year, so in the
top five.'
As it turned out, all of
those predictions proved to be duds. Amid the collapse of Louis van Gaal's
reign at Bayern, Dortmund had established a 10 point lead at the top of the
table by Christmas. With the likes of Mainz, Freiburg and Hannover among the
chasing pack, their only real contender for the title was Bayer
Leverkusen.
Having beaten Leverkusen in mid-January, Dortmund's route was clear. By
the time they had their wobble, their name was almost being engraved on the
trophy. They won only five of their last ten games, and still won the league
with a seven-point margin.
As Bayern recovered under Jupp Heynckes, the following season was
tougher. Yet even as defending champions, Dortmund were unburdened by
expectation. It was nearly 20 years since anyone had denied Bayern two years in
a row, and Klopp had no reason to think he had to defend his title.
'Bayern are going to win the league, that is as certain as the fact that
Amen will be said in church,' said Dortmund's CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke, even as
Dortmund drew level with Bayern at the top in late October. Having struggled in
the first few months, Dortmund would not go top until February.
Compare all this to Liverpool today. With City on their heels, they were
never going to run away with the title this year, but Klopp no longer has the
luxury of being coy. He recognised that from the moment he arrived, declaring
in 2015 that Liverpool 'could win the title in the next four years'.
He managed to win the Bundesliga with a young side that had not been
tipped at all.
Even as his team slipped behind City last weekend, Klopp refused to slip
back into the mentality of the underdog. On Saturday, he insisted with some
irritation that Liverpool remain very much in this title race.
He is right, but he also has no choice but to say so. After the amount
of money they spent in the summer and the way Liverpool have developed during
his tenure, he cannot be seen to settle for second best.
Liverpool fans, though, can take heart from the end of Dortmund's second
title run in 2012.
Having taken top spot with 14 games to go, they too were suddenly on
equal terms with their title rivals. For the first time, Klopp was unable to
claim the role of underdog, and mastered the situation. Dortmund dropped just
four points between January and May, refusing to relinquish their grip on first
place.
It wasn't always pretty: a
crucial missed penalty in the title decider against Bayern, and a scrappy derby
win over Schalke a week later saw them over the line. But they got there.
It was the same in 2015,
in Klopp's miserable final year at Dortmund. Having been sucked into the
relegation fight before Christmas, Klopp's sheer bloody-mindedness came to the
fore in the second half of the season. Dortmund recovered, and hauled
themselves into the Europa League.
It isn't always pretty
with Klopp, but he is more than just a clown. He is a genuine fighter, and
whether they win the title or not, we shouldn't expect anything but a genuine
fight from Liverpool in the coming weeks.
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