Premier League updates: Manchester City loss to Minamino, Liverpool’s 2020 designed by Jurgen Klopp
Midfield innovation, late goals and added spikiness key to sixth Champions League and the path to Premier League glory. German boss Jurgen Klopp has been signed to the club until 2024 by owners Fenway Sports Group. Football enthusiasts around the world can obtain Premier League Tickets online to enjoy its superb performances.
Golden years rarely come with more luster than Liverpool’s 2019. Jurgen Klopp’s team have taken the Kop on a thrilling ride. The most exciting thing about life at Anfield is that it feels like the start of something special, not the climax of a long journey.
In June, Klopp’s team brought the UEFA Champions League trophy back to Merseyside for the sixth time. On Saturday, victory over Flamengo in the Club World Cup in Qatar would see Liverpool crowned global champions. The possibilities seem endless.
Remarkably, the year started with a reverse, Liverpool’s last loss in the league.
The 2-1 defeat by Manchester City at the Etihad on January 3 was a costly setback Pep Guardiola’s team went on to win the title by a single point – but it was clear the margins separating the two best sides in the Premier League were tight. The balance began to tip in Liverpool’s favor that night. The conditions were set up for success for a number of reasons.
Management
Klopp is the focal point of everything that happens and German is the perfect fit for the club. His inspirational presence and energy lift the players and the crowd. This side of the 52-year-old’s character sometimes distracts from how deeply he thinks about the game. When he arrived at Anfield four years ago, Klopp had a reputation for favoring a high-energy pressing game – “Heavy metal football,” as he called it.
Liverpool’s approach this year has been much more subtle, with more selective pressing. The style of play has changed and the rest of the Premier League has not caught up with it. Klopp has been pragmatic, designing his systems to suit his players rather than forcing square pegs into round holes.
Tactics
Full backs are traditionally the least glamorous outfield positions but Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson have become the creative powerhouses of the team.
No opponents have been able to neutralize them. But it is not simply a matter of letting the wide defenders range forward. For the team’s structure to work, it needed a fundamental change in the way the midfield operates. Central players have traditionally been the engine room of the best teams. In Klopp’s system, they have had to largely forego the roles generally assigned to midfielders surging runs, goalscoring raids and determining the tempo of play.
For this team, their job is to give the side balance, fill space when the full-backs surge upfield and bolster the defense. This is not midfield play as we know it. If the team was split into categories, the front three Mo Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane and the full-backs comprise the creative group.
Personnel
Fenway Sports Group (FSG) has been magnificent in backing Klopp and changed the way they operate at his behest. Before Klopp arrived, Liverpool looked for young, undervalued players and tried to make the club a place where up-and-coming stars knew they could develop their game.
Unfortunately, that meant Anfield was a staging post rather than a destination. The change came when FSG sanctioned spending big money Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker. Both are experienced leaders with real presence.
Takumi Minamino, who has signed for £7.25 million from Salzburg, is the sort of player FSG has targeted over the years but once he would have come into an inexperienced team struggling to punch their weight. It would have been more difficult to find his feet in England. Now he can be eased in and develop naturally, giving him more chance of becoming a success.
FSG has also been astute in extending Klopp’s contract until 2024.
Mentality
Liverpool is hard to beat because they do not ease off, even when a game seems beyond rescue. The number of late goals – the latest coming in stoppage time of the 2-1 Club World Cup semi-final victory over Monterrey this week attests to this. The greatest example, though, was the 4-0 win over Barcelona in the Champions League after trailing by three goals from the first leg.
It looked an impossible task but Klopp’s team attacked the game as if it was still 0-0. Across the squad, there is relentlessness and conviction that has allowed them to claw out results even in games where they have been hanging on for spells. Klopp calls them “Mentality monsters.” It is hard to disagree with.
Spikiness
After Luis Suarez left Anfield, Liverpool was a soft touch. They could be outmuscled and intimidated at times. When the run of play was going against them, they let things continue instead of committing tactical fouls to break up the opposition’s rhythm. Sergio Ramos was allowed to dominate proceedings unchallenged in the Champions League final in Kyiv last year.
That no longer happens. Liverpool has become more physical when it is needed and less respectful of their rivals. This new approach was summed up when Robertson slapped Messi on the head at Anfield. The best teams have a seam of sidedness. Klopp’s men have grown much more confident in the game’s dark arts over the past 12 months.
Football admirers can get Liverpool Tickets through our online ticketing marketplace. Ticket4football.com is the most reliable source to book Arsenal Football Tickets.
