Klopptimism – How Jürgen Can Beat “Par”. By Paul Tomkins

http://tomkinstimes.com/2015/10/klopptimism-how-jurgen-can-beat-par/

By Paul Tomkins.

Liverpool now have the right tools for success: a good scouting and analytics set-up (if used correctly – more on that later) and a world-class manager. And while the club still lacks the financial might of its rivals, it now has an exciting level of ambition, and the optimism to back it up.

PART ONE

Belief is crucial in sport. Anything that can give your team belief is important. Other skills are essential too, but they are nothing without belief. Knowing you can do this is vital, not least when the going gets tough and doubts start to appear.

So much of the game is in the mind, and it’s a balance between believing you can succeed and wanting to succeed. One without the other is a problem, as seen with Chelsea this season – they knew they could be champions, but having gorged like gout-ridden Georgians on champions pie, they weren’t as bothered anymore. (Or maybe they didn’t believe that they could retain the title, which is harder; or that it wasn’t worth the extra effort.)

At the bare minimum, your team should ‘want it’. I find analysis that “we just wanted it more than them” shallow, and yet at times it’s true. But if someone wants it as much as you, then you need to be better technically and tactically. At the very least, you should never want it less than the opposition.

You’ll have off days, of course, but looking interested should be the least fans can expect from their team. (Although a nervous team can sometimes go into its shell, especially if the crowd is flat or antagonistic – and look like they’re not trying.)

And as well as wanting it, at the very least you need to be able to do the basics, and have smart tactical plans.

While everyone talks of Luis Suarez, I still believe that Dr Steve Peters played a key role in 2013/14; one of Brendan Rodgers finest appointments. (In fairness, it’s not a long list.) While it’s hard to state what exactly Peters did, plenty of top athletes swore by his methods. He was associated with Olympic gold medals. For me, this is one of the areas where the manager thought outside the box. And to beat par, that’s essential.

The manager himself had proved little in the game beyond mid-table Premier League overachievement with Swansea – which showed real talent, but not the type of success that was relevant to Liverpool – so he had to foster a sense of belief from somewhere.

Let’s face it, not one player saw Rodgers turn up and Melwood and thought “this is the guy to lead us to the great things!” Not one player looked at Colin Pascoe and Mike Marsh and thought “these guys have been there and done it as coaches, I can’t wait to run through brick walls for them”. Rodgers arrived as a talented coach, but he lacked gravitas. He lacked trophies, Champions League experience. So it needed something extra; something to instil belief. He handled most of the players well, but Peters gave him a way to drive them on. Even if it was a placebo, placebos can be powerful.

The problem was that when that season ended in ‘failure’, Peters presumably couldn’t cajole a demoralised bunch of men, with Rodgers amongst their number. Liverpool had fallen off Everest just metres from the summit (which made a change after years of barely making it past basecamp; indeed, some seasons they seem to fall off basecamp). But getting so close, and then losing the main component of the side – Luis Suarez – killed belief.

From that moment on there was a sense of “the chance has gone”. And while Rodgers had briefly, but massively overachieved to get the Reds as close as he did, the fact that the defence was blamed for falling short, and the highlighting of lack of a Plan B against Chelsea, may have altered his thinking and clouded his mind. On top of this, the captain and club legend, Steven Gerrard, was a beaten man. The disappointment cut through everyone. Last season was grim.

The belief had evaporated, and after a brief winning start to this season, two heavy defeats – particularly the 0-3 against West Ham – shattered the idea (which I’d clung to) that a few new players and a few new coaches could reverse the spiral in mood. Rodgers had no credit left in the bank on which to draw. Once his team were limply beaten at Old Trafford, the writing was on the wall.

By contrast, Jürgen Klopp doesn’t need sports psychiatrists – although if he wants to use them, that’s all well and good (Liverpool need to utilise anything that can help). Like most fans, I’d have taken Klopp in a heartbeat in the summer, but it didn’t seem like he was within reach.

Klopp exceeded par consistently in Germany, although like Diego Simeone at Atletico Madrid, his side were soon one the top three richest clubs in their country, and up against only one super-club (two in Spain), and therefore it was easier to finish in the top four, and slightly easier to win the title. All the same, Dortmund, like Atletico, still massively overachieved, and not just for a season. When people gave these examples to me, I always thought that such coaches were as far out of reach as players like Messi and Ronaldo. These were exceptional; and therefore exceptions to the rule.

But here he is, Jürgen Klopp. Rodgers – a fine coach who will bounce back somewhere slightly lower down the league (and maybe back towards the top a bit later in his career) – has been replaced by a great one.

Just by his mere presence, Klopp has got the club, the city and the worldwide fanbasebuzzing. And no matter what arguments you could form for or against Brendan Rodgers, you’d struggle to find a single fan in any part of the world who would take him back at the expense of Klopp. His sacking – which I wasn’t 100% sure about, but teetering towards as the season wore on – suddenly seems essential when put into this context. It was a no-brainer.

Klopp comes armed to the teeth with achievement; the kind Liverpool’s players will respect. He climbed Everest with Dortmund – and to the very summit, planting a giant yellow and black flag. Then the next season he bloody-well went and did it again! – with the domestic cup as well. All this with a club that was lingering mid-table when he pitched up, and in financial crisis.

The year after that double – 2013 – he almost went one better, in the Champions League Final.

It’s a different challenge here, with a greater number of powerful rivals. To exceed “par” over a number of seasons is tough. But Rodgers had stopped looking capable of evenhitting par, after his one shot at greatness. Klopp’s Dortmund side also eventually failed, of course, but only after four or five seasons of pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible. He revived a whole club, before his high-octane project ran out of gas.

It’s dangerous to celebrate before the new boss has actually done anything in the job, but he is no nearly-man. Right now, even if getting our hopes up may lead to them later being dashed, we need to harness this incredible energy. Premature or not, people will be stitching new banners, painting new flags. Anfield will be (Kraut) rocking.

Who could fail to be inspired by Jürgen Klopp? If he can’t get your blood pumping then you better be checked for a pulse. Even the dead of Anfield, interred beneath the Kop-end goal, will be tempted to rise for this man.

Buy Smarter

Seeing as so much is being made of the transfer committee (and their laptops) this week, it’s important for me to show how, in my opinion, Rodgers’ fine coaching skills were undermined by his terrible record in the market. I hope to make this my last look at Rodgers’ own spending, but it seemed vital to quickly go over each and every buy, with no one-sided selections. (And once Klopp has taken charge of a game, we can start focusing solely on what he’s doing.)

With better players – as seen in 2013/14, when none of his own players were key components – Rodgers could make things happen. Even with the dodgy defending I’d give him 10/10 for that season. But as far as I’m concerned, his influence on transfers is what made Liverpool start punching below their weight.

James Pearce of the Liverpool Echo was one of Brendan Rodgers’ most vocal supporters, to the point where he was sent snarky messages of sympathy upon the manager’s sacking.  So he’s unlikely to be negatively biased against him. (And I also hope that I’ve been a fair judge of Rodgers’ tenure, with no axe to grind, even if my opinion has vacillated.) In the week, Football365 asked Pearce who Rodgers wanted and who was foist on him by the committee. (This was in response to the revelations about Liverpool’sMichael Edwards not only having a laptop, but a nickname too.)

The list was more-or-less as I had expected, based on various media rumblings over the past few years. Whereas I’d tried to give each buy the benefit of the doubt at the time, it’s now time for a quick recap of what Liverpool got for their money, seeing as the media are taking fire at Liverpool’s analytics department.

Pearce said: “Rodgers was the driving force behind signing the likes of Fabio Borini, Joe Allen, Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, Rickie Lambert, Danny Ings, James Milner and Christian Benteke, while the other members of the committee championed the suitability of players such as Daniel Sturridge, Philippe Coutinho, Sakho, Emre Can, Moreno, Luis Alberto, Iago Aspas, Lazar Markovic, Divock Origi and Roberto Firmino.”

Which group of players would you want? Which group is “smart” and which group is, er, not so smart?

Rodgers’ list is exclusively Premier League-based, and largely dreadful. The committee’s list is mixed, but no more mixed than you’d expect from any sample of transfers. It’s notamazing, but it’s far from bad. For the purposes of this quick assessment I’ll use the emotive word ‘flop’, when it can also mean that they just haven’t succeeded (or had the chance to).

Fabio Borini (flop), Joe Allen (mixed), Adam Lallana (mixed), Dejan Lovren (flop), Rickie Lambert (flop), Danny Ings (very promising, but too soon to say), James Milner (worrying, but too soon to say) and Christian Benteke (promising, but too soon to say). You can add Kolo Toure (flop) and Mario Balotelli (flop), although the former was free and the latter was Rodgers taking a last-gasp gamble. What’s clear is that Borini, Allen, Lallana, Lovren and Benteke were all overpriced.

Buying proven Premier League talent is a myth, as I’ve been saying for a long time now. (Although I use a mainframe computer and not a laptop, and aside from bald dickhead I don’t have a nickname.) And not only are these players overpriced, and thus driving down the chance of finding extra value, they mean handing large fees to rival Premier League clubs. If Southampton have improved, it’s because Liverpool gave them sack-loads of money, which they reinvested wisely overseas by, er, using a large raft of analytics staff and not giving the manager all the buying power.

Liverpool’s committee buys? Daniel Sturridge (hit) – well, they’re already ahead. In terms of big successes, that’s already 1-0.

Philippe Coutinho (hit). 2-0. Back of the net. Game over.

And even the rest – beyond those two big hits – are probably better than Rodgers’ picks. Sakho (mixed), Emre Can (mixed), Moreno (mixed), Luis Alberto (flop), Iago Aspas (flop), Lazar Markovic (flop), Divock Origi (not yet given enough playing time) and Roberto Firmino (not yet given enough playing time). Simon Mignolet (mixed) is an obvious omission from Pearce’s list. Joe Gomez was also a committee recommendation, and one dating back 18 months, and he’s ‘promising, but too soon to say’.

You can add Tiago Ilori (flop), Oussama Assaidi (flop, albeit a profitable one). There were also a handful of unsuccessful loans, although it’s not quite clear who sanctioned those.

But to me, to focus on Assaidi at £2.4m, as the usually trustworthy Ian Herbert did in theIndependent, is a bit like saying Rafa Benítez cocked up his first summer’s buying by bringing in Antonio Nunez for £2m, and then ignoring Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia. This kind of cherry-picking one mildly bad example and ignoring two outstanding examples that contradict it is very poor indeed. If Assaidi was a flop, where were Coutinho and Sturridge, signed the same season (once the committee was properly formed) to redress the balance? In that piece, nowhere to be found.

Rodgers is more-or-less quoted by Ian Herbert of thinking Sakho is “shaky” (Herbert told me on Twitter that he was merely “reporting” this), but that suggests confirmation bias on the ex-manager’s part; because if Sakho is shaky, Lovren – who wasn’t mentioned – is a bowl of jelly in an earthquake sliding down a sinkhole. Also, Sakho is younger. And Sakho was cheaper.

Markovic, Ilori, Origi, Can, Coutinho, Moreno and Alberto are all still aged between 20 and 23, and Firmino just turned 24. Joe Gomez is 18, and though clearly raw, already looks more assured than Lovren, at a fraction of the price. And while I think that having a team with a low average age (anything below 25) can be problematic, Jürgen Klopp fielded a team in the Champions League at a scarcely believable 22.9. He is not scared of fielding young sides.

Klopp wants the first and last word on transfers, but not all the stuff that goes on in between. And the thing is, I’d trust his opinion on players, having worked with the best and frequently won games in the Champions League. And he has shown a willingness, with those he collaborated with at Dortmund, to buy from obscure markets: Robert Lewandowski cost £3m at the age of 22, from unfashionable Polish football. Liverpool can’t afford Lewandowski now, but they could have looked for someone comparable to where the Pole was at five years ago. Rodgers spent £3m on Rickie Lambert, if we’re going to make semi-random comparisons.

Shinji Kagawa arrived from Japan at the age of 21 for £300,000. Indeed, all Dortmund’s best buys were aged 20-24. Bender, Hummels and Gundogan were all just 20. Reus was 23, Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang 24 – underpriced homegrown talent and promising players from around the world. This approach fits with what the committee were trying to do. This wasn’t about filling the squad with ageing talent supposedly proven in theBundesliga.

Indeed, Klopp – with beautiful music to my ears – asked why should he go and buy expensive players from Dortmund when the whole world plays football? Rodgers greatest failing was the obsession with prior Premier League experience. Where was the point of difference? They often weren’t even the best Premier League players, and on occasions, not even close. Perhaps he didn’t trust the scouts and analytics guys and he wanted to only go for players he was familiar with. Well, that’s not good enough, on the evidence we’ve seen. If you want to go down that path, then you need the successes to back you up.

Going back to the opening point, someone like Rickie Lambert really wanted it, but his legs were going – Bob Paisley never bought an outfield player over the age of 26 in nine years, for this very reason (and the average age was 22). Paisley didn’t need a laptop to tell him that, and yet some people can’t see that this intuition and wisdom was part of ‘the Liverpool way’. Paisley bought young, and he bought from obscure  sources; he didn’t buy ready-made top-division players.

Theoretically, any of Rodgers’ signings could still have worked out – they obviously weren’t hopeless or mediocre at their preview clubs. But none have. None. Zero. Nada. Zip. Some have had good spells, but it’s proved a terrible waste of money so far.

So this is where Liverpool fell below par, despite Rodgers’ talents as a coach. Had he stuck to what he’s good at, I believe things could have worked out better.

Of course, there are other ways to beat par, which Jürgen Klopp can definitely help with. It won’t be easy, or a “given”, but at last the club is thinking smarter and aiming higher.

PART TWO – FURTHER WAYS TO BEAT ‘PAR’

The second half of this article is for subscribers only.

Liverpool Need To Stay Out of the Dark Ages. By Paul Tomkins

http://tomkinstimes.com/2015/10/liverpool-need-to-stay-out-of-the-dark-ages/

By Paul Tomkins.

I’ve recently had some sympathy for Neil Ashton of The Daily Mail, given that he is suffering from Bell’s Palsy and continues to present the Sunday Supplement (which I often enjoy, albeit depending on the quality of the guests – and usually, the less ‘tabloid’ they are the better). He has to do his job with half his facial muscles in paralysis, and that takes some bravery. I commend him on that.

However, his attack on Michael Edwards of Liverpool’s transfer committee was a laughable analysis of the situation, and read as quite spiteful. It’s the worst piece I’ve read on what’s been going on at Liverpool for a long time. The tone is horribly tabloid in style, with the strange highlighting of mundane details as if they were the devil’s doing (such as “air-conditioned”). And while Ashton would not have chosen the photos, they showed Rodgers looking solemn and Edwards laughing. Welcome to the modern media, folks.

It read like a hatchet job, written by someone who didn’t understand what they are talking about – or who was purposely choosing to give one side of the story without appreciating the other; indeed, whilst totally ignoring it, and talking like this was still 1975.

Neil Ashton, of the Daily Mail.

I’m someone who grew up as a “proper” football man, if I actually understand what it means to be a”proper” football man. My granddad played for Aston Villa, my dad was a good amateur and I played semi-professionally in the mid-‘90s before being diagnosed with M.E. (at which point I became a season ticket holder at Anfield, with my condition not as serious as it is now). I am also someone who has been using stats for over a decade – doing crazy things like looking at how many goals Liverpool conceded from zonal marking set-pieces under Rafa Benítez, and pointing out the bizarre fact that most years it was fewer than those clubs man-marking.

I’ve also used a lot of data analysis to write hundreds of articles on transfers, and also a successful book, Pay As You Play, in 2010. I’ve probably analysed transfers more than almost anyone else out there, and the work I’ve done with Graeme Riley on the Transfer Price Index will be part of a future academic study, having previously been used by a European Commission investigation into the football trade across the continent. It’s also been used by people within the game.

So I have a foot in both camps. Seeing with your eyes can be helpful, but also misleading (see the work of Daniel Kahneman). Data can shed light, but you also have to know how to read it.

I’ve been defending Brendan Rodgers these past 15 months, but equally, I’ve had reservations about his input into transfers, which I’ve been expressing on this site for quite a while. I’m always happy to look at the positives of any potential new arrival, even if they’re not my cup of tea; and give them time in a red shirt before making bold statements about them. I try to be open minded. But after at least a season at the club I will draw conclusions. Mistakes are easily made, and it needn’t be anybody’s fault – but success rates over a number of signings tell a story.

Those Rodgers brought in – the deals he drove – have been well below what I’d expect based on my extensive analysis of the past 23 years of Premier League activity. To my mind, this is where he made his big mistakes, and why he’s no longer Liverpool manager. Had he got his signings right, his tactical issues wouldn’t have been of a concern.

The great team Rodgers “formed” in 2013/14 revolved around players he inherited or who were brought to the club by the committee. He shaped the team perfectly. But he did not buy the players. And he was “lucky” to have Sturridge and Henderson, in that he didn’t initially want either.

Not one single key player was bought by Rodgers, and with up to ten of the club’s signings driven by him these past three years, that fact remains true today. Joe Allen is his best buy, and he’s been mixed at best. I like Allen, but he’s not made much of an impact – Liverpool could have lived without him. The same applies to all of Rodgers’ own buys.

In contrast, Jurgen Klopp is happy to work with the players given to him. He doesn’t get involved. He knows his strengths. 

And while Rodgers has many strengths, which I defended, spotting a player doesn’t appear to have been one of them. After a few weeks spent working with Jordan Henderson he wanted to swap him for Clint Dempsey, a player on the verge of decline, for about £5m. He didn’t want Daniel Sturridge in 2012, something I found bizarre at the time. He has flip-flopped on Lucas Leiva, and made various other calls that don’t shed a good light on his judgement. I like that he was able to change his mind on players; but his initial impressions were often wayward.

And he wanted to buy some truly mediocre players whom the club had to veto (and while I understand the unease at vetoing a manager’s wishes, Rodgers was never going to be allowed to run the whole show – something only Arsene Wenger does in the modern game, and he has earned the right to retain that power. Jose Mourinho doesn’t run the whole show at Chelsea).

However, Rodgers had some bold ideas and, for a while, got the team playing great football. I truly loved 2013/14, and Rodgers was the perfect manager for those players, at that point in time. The stars were Suarez, Sturridge, Coutinho, Sterling, Gerrard, Henderson and even Flanagan. None of these were Rodgers’ signings, but he helped improve them or reshape their game. That was his strength.

People talked a lot about Rodgers’ ego, and his hubris. I never quite trusted that talk. But I do feel that he needed to be less controlling when he’d never proven himself a good purchaser of players. Remember, this was not Rafa Benítez, arriving with two La Ligatitles, adding a Champions League within a season, and buying Xabi Alonso, Fernando Torres, Pepe Reina and Javier Mascherano, amongst other successes, in his first three years at Liverpool.

When Liverpool went close to the title in 2008/09 – winning more points than Rodgers’ side, but up against a supreme Man United (Ronaldo, Tevez, Rooney and Berbatov) – it was with those aforementioned signings. But even that was in “the old days”, before pretty much every club moved away from putting so much money in the hands of one man. Benítez is at Real Madrid now, but he’s not buying the players.

Anyway, here are a few gems from Neil Ashton’s piece, with my response below each strange paragraph.

“Michael Edwards, who is based at Liverpool’s Melwood training ground, has become FSG’s go-to guy in England after aligning himself with the data-driven model of the group’s baseball team, the Boston Red Sox.”

Welcome to 2015, Neil. Go and visit any football club and see what’s going on. Indeed, I think you did the same with Southampton and reached a totally different conclusion about their massive staff of analysts.

“This cosy relationship with FSG, dropping the owners emails throughout the day and increasing his power at the club, led to a strained relationship with former manager Brendan Rodgers.”

How dare employees email their bosses. And throughout the day! Who does that? And shame on FSG for taking a daily interest and wanting to be kept in the loop.

Presumably Brendan Rodgers also contacts people as part of his working life?

“Edwards encourages staff to use his nickname ‘Eddie’, giving a matey feel to the working environment. It is understood Rodgers has another name for him.”

Edwards has a nickname. He is therefore a witch. Burn him.

(I thought people in football were supposed to have nicknames? Or is that only “proper” football people?)

Also, if Rodgers has another name for him, how do you know that? It all sounds a bit unprofessional – just like the people who call Rodgers ‘David Brent’, which is something I’ve found rather pathetic. If Rodgers has his own snide nicknames for people then that makes him as bad as the morons on Twitter I spent far too long defending him against.

“Edwards fell perfectly into place with FSG’s Moneyball strategy, the statistical model designed to extract maximum value in the transfer market. Clearly, with the club 10th in the league and paying up to three times the going rate for players, it needs refinement.”

It was Rodgers who pushed for Lovren, Lallana and Benteke, three of the four most expensive signings made during his tenure. And for Mario Balotelli, at £16m – albeit as a last resort. On average, the players purchased by Rodgers were far more costly than those given to him by the committee.

The committee paid just £12m for Sturridge and £8m for Coutinho. Now, this is picking and choosing examples, admittedly, but we’d all take Sakho (committee) over Lovren (Rodgers), and Sakho was slightly cheaper. The committee failed with a few cheap punts like Aspas, but it’s not like Rickie Lambert looked even remotely like a Liverpool player, despite his love of the club. That was a cheap Rodgers punt that failed. It happens.

Moneyball, a grossly misunderstood term, is just about seeing value where others might not – something Southampton do. But Rodgers wanted proven Premier League players (the benefit of which is an utter myth, based on my analysis of 3,000 transfers since 1992). So Southampton would find cheap foreign players, like Lovren, by using video analysis (they even showed the player videos when they signed him, pointing out how they’d identified his strengths and weaknesses) and then a year later Rodgers would pay £20m for him. That’s not Moneyball. That’s not even remotely smart.

“Despite a lack of playing experience at any relevant level, Edwards, who earns £300,000 a year, has a big say on Liverpool’s notorious transfer committee. He would arrive for meetings with Rodgers, managing director Ian Ayre, chief scout Barry Hunter and head of recruitment Dave Fallows armed with the latest data on potential targets.”

Jose Mourinho has a lack of playing experience at any relevant level.

The same applies to Rafa Benítez.

Hell, it applies to Brendan Rodgers too. Or did I miss his wonderful playing career?

Why does this even matter in 2015?

“The committee have yet to explain how they came up with the figure of £29million to sign Brazilian forward Roberto Firmino from Hoffenheim, who finished eighth in the Bundesliga last season.”

Presumably the figure came about through negotiations. It’s a starting figure of £22m rising to £29m. Quite why Liverpool would pay that for one of the stars of the Bundesliga (32 league goals in his final two seasons, when playing from deeper areas), who has been playing regularly for Brazil this past year (four goals in his first 11 caps), is beyond me.

Firmino also arrived late for preseason because he was off swanning around playing for Brazil – what a waste of space!

And who do the committee have to explain that to?

And yet it was Rodgers who wanted to pay £32.5m for Benteke, something the club was clearly uneasy about, given the tentative bids. (And if we’re focusing on where the teamfinished, Villa were almost relegated.)

For the record, I like both players, and neither has had enough time to be judged a success or a flop – you have to at least allow a season. Or even half a season. It would be daft to label Benteke a flop because he’s got just two goals, one fewer than Danny Ings, despite costing what may end up being six or seven times more.

“Divock Origi, billed as ‘a world-class talent’ by Rodgerswhen he was signed from Lille, could not even come off the bench in the club’s last two league games. There are countless other errors.”

Divock Origi did well at the World Cup when he was 19. And Rodgers was the one who called him a world-class talent. Which he is, for his age-group.

Rodgers chose to use Ings ahead of Origi. Which, to date, looks fair enough. Origi will get his chance. How can a mere kid be an error so soon after arriving as a 4th-choice striker?

There will always be errors. Approximately half of all players signed in the Premier League era has failed to make an impact, or proved a waste of money. Approximately 10% work out as great buys, and these are often younger players, and come more frequently from overseas than the Premier League.

“After each Liverpool game Edwards emails analysis and data to the club’s owners in America, detailing where the match was won and lost. It has made for grim reading this season. Edwards has used his relationship with FSG to strengthen his hand at the club, becoming a trusted source of information to a group of people who are obsessed with statistical analysis.”

Obsessed, I tell yer!

The truth is that Liverpool use information as part of a process. No players are bought without scouting them as well. The stats are a way to identify talent, and to look at strengths of weaknesses. Human eyes are also used. It’s the same at all clubs, even Manchester City and Chelsea. I know some of the people doing that very job, and how they go about it.

“Edwards can tap away at a laptop and within seconds tell you how many assists the 24-year-old Turkish left back Eren Albayrak has made for Rizespor this season (four).”

In 2015, who actually gives a shit about assists? To me, that sentence reads like saying young people go to Our Price to buy CDs.

“Edwards and his team of analysts have invented a new language for football. Strikers are all about goal expectancy, chances created and the percentage of successful passes in the final third. Old-school managers just want to know if the boy can put the ball in the net. Defensive midfielders are judged on interceptions and the number of challenges won in the centre of the pitch.”

All clubs use analytics. Many use goal expectancy (xG), chances created and the percentage of successful passes in the final third – and have been doing so for years. They use other stuff, too.

Sam Allardyce apparently fined his players for shooting from outside the box because he knew it was a one-in-40 chance of scoring (something I’d have done to Liverpool players against Carlisle, such was their stupidity with 29 long-range efforts against the worst defence in English football). There’s your old-school manager, er, building a career around stats. I may not like Allardyce very much – he frequently comes across as an almighty prick – but he massively over-performed as a manager at Bolton with the aid of stats. He’s very good at his job.

Meanwhile, Neil Lennon got rid of the analytics people at Bolton, as he thinks it’s “all a load of nonsense” – and they sit in the Championship relegation zone. Good old proper football people!

“The increasing influence of analysts, young men who have no experience of scouting or recruiting players, has meant the end of the road for good football men such as Mel Johnson. He was the scout who recommended Liverpool sign talented young winger Jordon Ibe from Wycombe but was sacked, shamefully, in November 2014.”

Ibe is indeed a talented young winger. But he’s also having a poor 6-9 months, and has had just a handful of good games for the club (which is nothing to worry about yet). He’s a little younger than Divock Origi, who has 15 caps for Belgium and a goal at a World Cup. Ibe has yet to score for Liverpool. Ibe has great potential. So does Origi. Origi was excellent against Sion last week, by the way. That means he’s had an excellent game this season, unlike Ibe.

Ibe has been at Liverpool for four years. Origi has been at Liverpool for eight league games. When there is a squad of 25 players, some of whom are just starting out, not everyone will be in the XI, right?

What’s with this “good football men” bollocks?

And hasn’t Edwards been part of the recruitment process at Premier League clubs for well over a decade now? Longer, indeed, than Rodgers has been in management. Edwards was at Portsmouth when they were good, Spurs when they were good, and Liverpool, when they almost won the title based on some of his recommendations.

“Instead a new breed sits in air-conditioned offices, cutting up videos from matches all over the world and burying their heads in the stats. Edwards, along with his vast team of analysts, constantly monitors the opposition, providing detail about playing positions, style, routines, set-pieces and other important matchday information.”

Exactly what kind of voodoo is this, with air-conditioned offices? Why aren’t they working from caves, carving their ideas into stone tablets?

Why are they collating information? What good has information ever done anyone?

What good can come from analysing things?

Ashton wrote a very positive piece a while back about the very same ideas being used by Southampton, where they employ something like 26 analysts. It’s a different challenge at Liverpool, but Liverpool are doing nothing different to Manchester City and other big clubs. They just have less money.

“Edwards was head-hunted by Damien Comolli when the Frenchman became director of football at Liverpool, turning down an increased salary of £250,000 a year at White Hart Lane to join the Anfield revolution. Levy was distraught.”

So Edwards was at Spurs when they were signing lots of great players, and then joined Liverpool, who signed Jordon Henderson and Luis Suarez. Shortly after, the committee forced Daniel Sturridge onto Rodgers (according to The Times’ Tony Barrett), after the manager originally turned him down (having bought, er, Fabio Borini). Oh, and they gave him Coutinho, too. So that’s four great buys in a period of a couple of years, with Edwards a key figure.

The committee’s signings from the summer of 2013 did not work out. And Rodgers used his great success coaching that season to get more control of the transfer budget. At which point the team got much worse.

I will always be grateful to Rodgers for his part in a glorious season, and I still like much about the man. He’s a good manager.

But I’m looking forward to things being better under Jurgen Klopp. And if he doesn’t like the transfer committee, with his vastly superior experience to Rodgers, and his desire not to meddle in such things, then I might take him seriously. Unlike Rodgers, he seems just what we need right now.

Jürgen Klopp Can Balance Defence and Attack Written by Andrew Beasley (Beez)

http://tomkinstimes.com/2015/10/jurgen-klopp-can-balance-defence-and-attack/

Written by Andrew Beasley (Beez). 

Now that Jürgen Klopp has been confirmed as the new manager of Liverpool, it’s time to look at a few stats from his time at Dortmund, to see if his championship winning sides were that good, or if the team in his final season were that bad.

Time constraints sadly prevent me from going really in-depth on this, but I’ve returned to an old favourite of mine for this article: Shots on Target ratio (SoTR). It’s a great stat as it’s really easy to figure out, using widely available data, and best of all (as this article shows) it’s almost as good as fancy expected goals models. Simple but effective; perfect.

I first wrote about SoTR in 2013 for the Tomkins Times book These Turbulent Times(and you can read the article here), but for the uninitiated, SoTR is a simple measure of how many of the total shots on target in a game one team has. So if Team A has six shots on target and Team B have four, their Shots on Target ratios are 60% and 40% respectively.

For one game it may not tell us a lot, but across a whole season it can be very useful, as teams tend to finish roughly in order of their SoTR. Using six seasons of data from the Premier League, I have found that the champions average 66%, second place posts 64%, third 62% and fourth, you guessed it, 60%. (Liverpool in 2008/09 averaged higher than the usual champion mark, at 67.1%.)

I haven’t checked if these figures apply to Germany, where there are fewer financial behemoths and only eighteen teams in the division (plus as TTT subscriber WillTGM has noted, analytic standards from England don’t always apply in Germany), but the below table certainly suggests that similar figures are probably in play in the Bundesliga; the two Dortmund sides with a figure below 60% both finished outside the top four, for instance.

What we have here is a table showing the shot figures for Dortmund in each of Klopp’s seven seasons, the same years for Bayern Munich (to provide some context from Germany) and also the last three seasons for Liverpool. The clubs are sorted by their shots on target ratios.

Here are the main points of interest for me:

• I’ve looked at seven seasons of Premier League data for this, and only one team has either averaged over 6.8 shots on target per game, or posted a SoTR of over 70%. In fact, it was one team who did both: the Chelsea side of 2009/10 (whose manager Liverpool definitely haven’t spoken to), yet we can see here that Klopp’s Dortmund managed both of these feats on their way to the title in 2010/11, and also hit over seven shots on target per game in 2013/14.

• Dortmund weren’t as bad in 2014/15 as the league table suggests. Colin Trainor proved that here using in-depth data a few months ago, but again, the simplicity of the shots data makes it clear too. They allowed their opponents the second fewest shots in the division hat season (behind Bayern, inevitably), and their SoTR was (by English standards) akin to that of a third placed team.

Over his seven seasons with Dortmund, Klopp’s team averaged a SoTR of 63.7%; if he can repeat that at Anfield then he will surely bring Champions League qualification (and who knows what else) to Liverpool.

The other stat of interest that I have recently noticed is that Klopp’s Dortmund were not prone to committing Opta-defined defensive errors which lead to shots. This was a major problem for Liverpool throughout Brendan Rodgers’ time in charge; for instance, the Reds’ previous two 1-1 draws in the league both saw leads wiped out by a defensive error.

In total in Klopp’s final three seasons, Dortmund made 34 defensive errors. By contrast, Liverpool made 36 in Brendan Rodgers’ first season alone, and were in the top three Premier League teams for most errors in every one of his three full seasons (and at the time of writing, also for 2015/16 so far).

There will now be countless articles out there providing a variety of in-depth analyses of Klopp’s tactics, his favoured playing style and so on, and with this brief scratch of the surface I can’t hope to compete. But what I think I can say is this…

At his Liverpool best, Brendan Rodgers built a phenomenal attack but it was combined with a flimsy defence, which was prone to mistakes and allowing good chances. But at his Dortmund best, Jürgen Klopp had both a phenomenal attack AND an excellent defence, and repeating that will give him a fantastic chance of succeeding in what I still believe is arguably the hardest job in football.

Welcome to Liverpool, Jürgen. Make us dream please!

Read more at basstunedtored.com.

Kop to Cop Klopp? – “Clap Clap!” By Paul Tomkins

http://tomkinstimes.com/2015/10/kop-to-cop-klopp-clap-clap/

By Paul Tomkins.

First of all, apologies for the tabloid headline. I thought it would be best to get it out of the way now. Let’s hope he doesn’t flop, hop, or go pop.

It seems nailed-on that Liverpool will announce Jurgen Klopp as their boss – possibly before the end of this week. After three boringly-named British managers (not that Dalglish isn’t anything other than special in its own way), it’s refreshing to have to work out whether or not to use a umlaut when typing Jürgen, just as I had to get used to the é in Gérard Houllier, and the special í in Benítez.

Truth be told, I prefer foreign bosses. And I prefer them because, as with foreign players, there are a lot more of them. I don’t prefer any old foreign boss. But I loathe the idea, as touted in 2010 – and something the club has struggled to recover from – that it has to be an English boss.

English football is specialised, in that we have a fairly unique way of playing, in a part of the world that differs from many footballing hotbeds (the Latin countries), but Britain houses less than 1% of the world’s population. That means that more than 99% of the pool to choose from exists outside this tiny island – an island that is far too insular in its outlook.

It’s the same with limiting the focus of talent to Liverpool itself – it’s just too small in this big, wide world, even if you want to see the best from the city in the squad, and maybe making the team. What you don’t want is tokenism – as was the case in 2009/10, when Rafa Benítez was accused of picking Lucas Leiva over Jay Spearing, when the manager knew that Spearing simply wasn’t as good. Give me a Lucas over a Spearing any day of the week, although we’d all want another Carragher, Gerrard or Fowler.

There are good British managers, just as there are good British players. But now that Ferguson has retired, are there any great British managers still working in the game? How many are testing themselves abroad? The British media champion British managers, and British managers demand the top jobs, but they just aren’t good enough.

Brendan Rodgers may be the best British manager working today. But his experience, like so many others from the UK, is limited to British football. There are always lots ofpromising young British managers, but they rarely get the biggest jobs these days; and part of the problem is that when they do they fail – or in Rodgers’ case, fail to succeedquite enough. At least he wasn’t the car crash that was Hodgson at Liverpool and Moyes at United, and to a lesser extent, Mark Hughes at Man City.

By the time he’s 50, Rodgers should be a much better manager (eight years is a long time; in 2007 Liverpool were in their second Champions League Final in three seasons – yes,that’s how long). But at 42 his experience is limited. Excluding Europa League qualifiers, he won just a third of his games in Europe, and while all but six of those games were in a competition that is hard to take seriously in its bloated group stage format, it shows a possible gap in knowledge. Of course, he wasn’t sacked for not being very good in the Europa League, although last season’s Champions League campaign was a black mark. (A big tick for getting there, mind.)

Right now Liverpool need to punch above their weight in the league, but over the past 46 Premier League games (38 last season, eight this season) it’s been below that. At some stage there had to be a cut-off point. Go back another season and we were close to heaven. But this season, rather than be in the hell that was Hodgson, it was a kind of purgatory – neither here nor there; dull, uninspiring, unremarkable.

I will state again that Brendan Rodgers did a good job at Liverpool, as I’ve been saying for the past 18 months. But it was starting to go stale – indeed, just as it does for most managers; often after three years, but sometimes five or six. It went stale for Klopp in Dortmund. But it’s vital that we can differentiate between the end of a cycle and the notion that the manager wasn’t actually that good after all, or that he got “found out”. Cycles end when the turnover of players falls short (the best players leave or retire and the new ones stop being good enough), and also when the coach runs out of ideas or energy.

Indeed, I was told that someone in the media was spouting off about Klopp getting ‘found out’ at Dortmund in his last season – which was also his seventh. He got ‘found out’ after winning back-to-back league titles and reaching the Champions League Final. His Mainz team also got relegated – what a failure! – but this was only after he took them into the top flight for their first ever time (in his first ever job), and into European qualification.

Again, after seven years the cycle ended. There’s no shame in that. He stayed with themafter relegation, to show his loyalty, but he’d run out of steam. Still, it’s not bad to have had two jobs with clear success achieved – incredible highs – and been in both for seven seasons. You have to go back to Bob Paisley for the last Liverpool manager to go more than six seasons (although there is more pressure, nay hysteria, surrounding Liverpool than Mainz and even Dortmund; certainly on social media).

Like Rodgers, Klopp lost many of his best players to richer rivals, although in his case he was losing them to Dortmund’s major domestic powerhouse; imagine if Suarez had gone to Manchester City along with Sterling, instead of overseas, and it was Liverpool’s job to finish above them.

Bubbles burst. The important thing is to be able to blow the damn thing up big and fat in the first place. And in fairness to Rodgers, he did just that. But whatever it was that combined to such great effect in 2013/14 (and it wasn’t just Suarez) had started to get lost 18 months ago.

Suitability

According to his agent, “Jürgen doesn’t like to speak to players’ agents or to carry out a transfer.”

This is perfect for what FSG are trying to do, and one way of avoiding the mixed-up messages of the transfer committee – which, to me, was flawed not by its selection of players but by the fact that the manager was asking for his own players, and them getting them …in addition to the committee ones. Too many players arrived, with Rodgers’ insular focus on Premier League talent a needless narrowing of the potential field.

After all, Liverpool couldn’t afford the best players in the league – they were already at least five clubs, who wouldn’t sell to a rival (plus there are always a couple of gems at Everton, who are also off-bounds), so what was left but to overpay for what was at the 13 remaining clubs?

I don’t think that buying a player from Swansea or Sunderland makes them limited to being a Swansea or Sunderland player; Jordan Henderson proves that. But you can’t keepshopping in that market.

The purchases Rodgers drove were from Swansea, Aston Villa and, famously on fouroccasions, Southampton – a club, incidentally, which were using much the same methodologies as Liverpool’s data and scouting gurus, and bringing undervalued talent into the country. To buy one or two players from these clubs is fine; to buy so many was concerning.

Southampton also have banks of data analysts hooked up to computer and video screens – but the difference is that they don’t then ignore that work to go out and buy overpriced Premier League talent on the manager’s say-so; and of course, the south coast side are bringing players into a lower-pressure environment, but where they were helped by English-speaking continental managers.

The manager at Southampton, and other clubs that operate that way, is not then looking to play his own signings; and while I don’t think there’s any proof to suggest that Rodgers ignored committee signings in favour of his own buys to prove a point, he was always going to choose them first, and therefore the committee buys were starting off at a disadvantage. Rodgers also bombed out his own signings, but possibly gave them more of a chance.

For me, Rodgers’ downfall was due to this inability to work with what he was given – not a failing exclusive to British managers, but something British managers seem unable to adapt to. As I noted in yesterday’s piece, and indeed, as I’ve said many times, the best players in Rodgers’ Liverpool sides have all been either inherited or foist upon him. None of the best players were ever the ones he brought to the club.

Klopp will work with what he’s given. He may not like everything he’s given, but he will be free to choose the best players, with no agendas (subconscious or otherwise) clouding his thought processes. He will work with young players, and not make a big deal of it.

A few years ago I worked out that Bob Paisley’s signings averaged just 22 years of age at the time of purchase; and while they weren’t being thrust into young teams, they back up my research that 20-23 is the best age to sign players – not just for potential resale value, but in terms of them becoming great players for your team. Yes, you can sign successful older players too, but they offer no greater odds on success, but often cost more in fees and wages.

The 10 players that I think Rodgers was most keen to bring to the club average out at 26, and yet almost all failed to deliver – when, at the peak stage of their careers, there’s less time to wait. (The whole point of buying players in that age-bracket is the perceived idea that they will be more instantly successful.)

Paisley’s signings. Click To Enlarge.

Whoever is manager, the club has to try and hold onto those players who are worth keeping and who are full of experience – the good players aged 25-30 – and keep bringing in 18-23 year olds, as well as promoting the best youth graduates. New signings have to be given until their second season before being judged, unless they are utterly awful or totally disruptive. Some kind of continuity is required, as the turnover has been too rapid. It also hasn’t helped that Rodgers’ approach seemed to change too rapidly, and how do you buy for that? Was he adapting to the players he was given, or was he changing systems before they’d had a chance to adjust?

Maybe one or two older purchases could be necessary early on to make up any shortfall in experience (Gerrard has gone, Kolo Toure isn’t much use these days), and to compensate if several senior members suddenly ‘fall off the cliff’ – but the committee are without doubt aiming in the right age bracket for signings. We can all debate the quality, but overall it hasn’t been as bad as portrayed.

Kloppite

German football expert Raphael Honigstein is as good as anyone to discuss the merits of Klopp, and this is what he had to say to the Fanscorner website a few weeks ago:

“I think Klopp would fit in at Liverpool in the sense that it’s a club full of emotions, a club that lives on the interaction between the crowd and the players. I think Klopp has learned to utilise that very well. He’s a passionate guy, he’s a motivator. He also has his tactical knowhow, but I think he thrives on the energy that he manages to create in the dressing room and inside the stadium.”

“What he would need though, and this goes for any club he goes to as well, is a Director of Football. Sometimes there’s a flawed view of managers, from an English perspective, as the guys who buy and sell players. He’s never bought or sold a player, apart from maybe one or two from Mainz … I don’t think he would want the responsibility of signing players. I think you need a great partnership between him and a guy who manages to bring players which fit into the system.”

“The way Liverpool have been buying and selling players has been… well, it’s hard for any coach to really understand what he’s doing. It’s especially hard for Rodgers who doesn’t seem to have a clear direction and changes his philosophy every six months. First it was possession, where they had to keep the ball at all costs and they got a hundred 0-0’s. Then the next year they played counter attacking football which nearly won them the league, and the year after that was when they crossed the fine line between being flexible and being all over the place.”

“I think perception is very important. As a player he needs to feel that the coach knows what he is doing, even if he changes 3 or 4 times a game like Guardiola. If it was Claudio Ranieri players would be looking at him and thinking that this is a joke, but because it’s Pep they appreciate it. With Rodgers, I’m not sure that’s the case. There’s a lot of change going on, maybe because he doesn’t really know what idea works. But yes, it would be hugely exciting to see Klopp come in.”

Why Now?

Klopp would arrive after a short sabbatical, and that’s always better than going straight into a new job, especially given that he’s admittedly a very emotional man (he cried for a week after leaving Mainz).

Ideally a new man would have been appointed in the summer – that’s the obvious time. However, I think it was fair to give Rodgers a chance – but it had to be a special start, not a mediocre one – and it may be more beneficial to get Klopp now than straight after the end of his Dortmund tenure.

A few months isn’t a long time, but in football it’s an eternity; especially when managers can’t genuine take holidays whilst in charge of a club, without thinking and thinking about every last detail. (Although Ferguson’s longevity seems in part due to his other interests, and maybe an ability to switch off – although he was only a part-time manager, rarely on the training ground in later years.)

Of course, had Klopp signed in the summer we may not have had the latest round of tit-for-tat signings (Rodgers apparently only agreeing to the signing of Roberto Firmino if he could have Christian Benteke).

Then again, I have a lot of faith in both Firmino and Benteke – with the former a clear talent who Klopp would know well from their time in the Bundesliga, and the latter a hugely underrated player, albeit one who may not be suited to what Klopp wants to do. (Firmino seems more up his straße.)

The problem Rodgers had was that he didn’t seem to know what to do with Firmino, who arrived late due to international duty, and whom he didn’t seem to have planned a starting position for; nor how to get the best out of Benteke in the brief experiments he tried, even if the results were initially good. Both players were injured after just a few games. It remains to be seen if either is worth c.£30m, although these are not astronomical fees in 2015, even if they aren’t exactly cheap to a club run on its turnover and not dodgy oil money.

However, as with Lazar Markovic, who was bought at the same time as Adam Lallana to play in much the same role, and Dejan Lovren, who was bought as a left-sided centre-back when Liverpool had Mamadou Sakho – making for four players at c.£20m each, only two of whom would usually start – there appears to have been no provision for what would happen with Firmino. This is where the transfer system broke down, because of the manager’s vested interest in those he believed in, at the expense of those he perhapsneeded to be more open-minded about. Rodgers may have some valid gripes about players given to him, but it never once seemed like everyone was working to the same end goal.

At least FSG will now know that whoever gets picked has nothing to do with any type of bias – something I sense they felt wasn’t the case under Rodgers – and given that Klopp clearly knows what he’s doing (even if it doesn’t end up working), we will know whether or not the committee are supplying duds or not.

Also, Klopp can help Liverpool tap into the undervalued German market – something done with Emre Can for just £10m, although Firmino’s fee was fairly full-on. It’s the ideal league to import from, due to the similar work ethic and weather conditions; and Bayern Munich aside, it’s not full of elite clubs that can definitely afford to hang onto their best players. Klopp’s reputation is also global, so that will help in any market.

What Will He Find?

So, let’s take a quick detour around the squad as it stands.

Klopp will find a lot players he can build a strong team with, even if there isn’t an abundance of elite talent. The aim has to be to get the side to be greater than the sum of its parts, something that Rodgers briefly did.

The giant German will find Coutinho, who has been looking disillusioned this season, and in need of a lift. And he will find Sturridge, whom I’m sure he’ll love, if he can be kept fit. (Although Klopp likes wild team celebrations more than wiggly arms.) And he will have Jordan Henderson, a player it’s impossible not to love, if you have more than two brain cells.

He will have Benteke – a player who can be unplayable on his day, and has scope to improve, at 24. And he will find Firmino, who may fare better under the German. What he will struggle to do is form a team with all of these aforementioned players, but he will want a strong bench, too.

There’s James Milner – who may have to revert to utility man, now that he is no longer tied to Rodgers’ promise of central midfield. There’s Lucas, who, like Henderson, is hard to dislike if you know your football. Both Milner and Lucas are, at worst, very solid squad players; at best, experienced internationals. What you might not want is both in the same XI, especially at home, unless fielding several very attacking players around them.

There’s Emre Can, a massive talent – and German, to boot – but one whose versatility currently makes him a jack of all trades and master of none. I’m so glad that Liverpool have him, but I have no idea what should be done with him. At 21, there’s time to shape him into something special. Will he be a midfield lynchpin, or could Joe Allen yet find full fitness and consistency?

My guess is that Klopp will really like the pace of Origi – who had his best game a week ago, when he tore past Sion defenders – and Ings; the latter having more heart and energy, and having hit his goalscoring stride, while the former, though barely used, possesses the change of gear to leave defenders for dead. After a great loan at Derby and bright period after returning from loan, Jordon Ibe, still only 19, is having the kind of dip you’d expect, but maybe Klopp can help lift him out of the slump. He’s another quick, exciting attacking talent, albeit like Origi, still very raw. Klopp will also find Lazar Markovic on loan in Turkey, which won’t be a lot of help, and the promising Sheyi Ojo doing well at Wolves.

There’s Mamadou Sakho, a defensive lion whose ability on the ball is inversely related to what most pundits see (he rarely gives it away, he passes forward more than Liverpool’s other central defenders – including Agger, when he was at the club – and his average distance is 20 yards, not three or four). And there’s Martin Skrtel, as reliable as he is unreliable – but at his best, one of the standout centre-backs in the division (it’s just a shame that it’s only half the time, and that when he’s bad, he’s dreadful). Both could benefit from better protection. Even Dejan Lovren has looked a good defender when afforded some protection – but without it he’s a total liability. (Oh, and there’s the bloke in the corner, with a big smile on his face – Kolo Toure.)

There’s Joe Gomez, Nathaniel Clyne, Alberto Moreno and Jon Flanagan – four young/youngish full-backs, with a real mix of abilities. Moreno is currently starring as a wing-back, but it’s debatable whether he could thrive at full-back in a country where long diagonal balls are used to exploit anyone under 6ft tall – but his pace is great when going forward, and in recovery challenges. Gomez is a thoroughbred for his age, but almost no big clubs risk 18-year-olds at centre-back, so full-back may remain his position for a good while yet. Clyne is quick and strong, and defensively solid, but average on the ball. And Flanagan is hopefully going to return at some point with all the guts he showed in the past. There’s enough to work with here, if not the ideal all-round full-back.

In Simon Mignolet he will find an improving goalkeeper whose shot-stopping can reach the elite level, and whose command of his area has improved since being dropped last season, but who still doesn’t inspire confidence. He’s poor with the ball and not too quick off his line. With Mignolet you feel it really could go either way.

What’s left? Adam Lallana – talented, but featherweight. (If Klopp rates him highly enough to make him a regular, then we can all accept that Rodgers wasn’t showing bias.) There’s João Carlos Teixeira – now 22, and clearly a talent, but in need of a boost or a move. There’s also 18-year-olds Jordan Rossiter (who looks like a cross between Spearing and Gerrard, falling in between the two on the spectrum) and Pedro Chirivella, who looks like a world-class midfield recycler in the making, but who still has a long way to go.

So as I said, a surplus of very good players, but a shortage of truly outstanding ones. There’s enough to build a strong team, and have seven strong substitutes, but it could indeed be teamwork that gets results, rather than relying on individual brilliance – especially if Coutinho isn’t at it, and Sturridge isn’t fit.

A lot will depend on how the vast majority of players – still not at their hypothetical peak – improve in the next year or two. What we won’t want is another mass turnover of players, after three such summers – quality, rather than quantity, should be the aim in January, if the market permits, and certainly next summer.

Winner

Klopp has the aura of a winner, and while it can seem meaningless to say that the manager must have that trait – great managers turn into winners somewhere along the line – it seems important at Liverpool, at this point in time, where a track record of success is lacking in all areas of the club right now.

And FSG need it too, to add credibility to what they’re trying to do, after 18 months of doubts about their credentials and intentions. To appoint another relative rookie could prove a gamble too far, at a time when things haven’t been going well. (It would also stop them being deluged on Twitter with cries of #Klopp.)

Klopp would represent a massive coup, and guarantee an injection of belief into all aspects of the club, when most of us are getting used to Liverpool being a B-list club in the oligarch age. The Kop might even start rocking again – although its atmosphere these days falls well short of what Klopp was used to at the Westfalenstadion, where 82,000 would attend games, with few of them tourists and jaded punters, and when they weren’t paying a lot of money for the privilege.

But if he could get just some of the old passion back – something that Rodgers managed two seasons ago – then Liverpool would have one extra weapon in the aim to push beyond the ‘natural order’ limit of 5th as par.