Monday, October 31, 2016

Flashbacks To Vietnam and Bad LSD, Via Selhurst Park by Paul Tomkins



In By Paul TomkinsFree





https://tomkinstimes.com/2016/10/flashbacks-to-vietnam-and-bad-lsd-via-selhurst-park/




The first half of Liverpool’s latest stirring victory was like a bad acid trip I took after returning from Vietnam in 1969, two years before I was even born. Everything went fuzzy and there was some Doors music playing, possibly at half-speed. Every time Palace went forward it was like someone else’s life – indeed, the lives of lots of people – flashed before my eyes, all amidst vague shouts of “Tomkins, you fucked up there! You lost your man…”.
By the 30-minute mark I’d given up the usual hopes taken into a game – clean sheet, and almost any hope of winning – based on the fact that Palace were able to score two goals having created just one chance.
It was 2013/14 all over again – a vivid, technicolour flashback to that awful day when Liverpool, upon realising that they could go top if they racked up double-figures, let a three-goal lead slip late-on with trauma-inducing ineptness.
This was also starting to feel like something of a return to the harum-scarum football of Rodgers’ middle season, although Klopp’s side have rarely given away more than a goal in a game since Alberto Moreno was benched after the first game of the season.
Here Moreno was back in the side, and although he attacked very well, and didn’t do an awful lot wrong defensively – and retains his own 100% win rate this season – he seems like a conjurer of chaos. He’s batshit crazy – el fucking loco – and while part of me loves him for it, the other part of me wants recompense for the five years he’s taking off the end of my life.
My personal, staid, mid-life opinion is that you only bring attention to yourself with your appearance when things are going well. Robbie Fowler was entitled to die his hair blonde in 1995, and Lionel Messi, also recently dabbling with the peroxide, could have a giant cock tattooed on his forehead and still avoid derision; nice cock, we’d all say.
What Moreno did with the bleach is a bit like Wayne Rooney deciding that now would be a good time to grow a ponytail – assuming that the scraggy remnant of Muppet fabric atop his head actually has the ability to increase in length.
The fact that Moreno chose to go blonde when things weren’t going well for him suggests something of a loose cannon, and although it’s hard to fault his performance (other than not getting closer to Zaha on the second goal, albeit in itself a danger), I’ve never missed the boring, level-headedness of James Milner quite so much. Milner is Mr Anti-Chaos. Milner would never die his hair blonde, and right now I’m thankful for that dullness.
Of course, Milner was a bit of a loose cannon at Palace last season – a rare moment of recklessness – at a ground where nothing feels simple anymore. That occasion ended up proving a landmark under Klopp, coming back from a goal and a man down to win, against all odds. So maybe Selhurst Park can be struck off the list of bogey grounds – albeit itself a bit of a strange phenomenon if most of these players weren’t even at the club in 2013/14. There’s no such thing as a curse, unless you believe you’re cursed, and act accordingly.
Of course, Liverpool have a rather large 27-year curse to eradicate – which is obviously not an actualcurse, but which brings its own mental demons. Fortunately, Arsenal – another of the early pacesetters – have a prolonged wait of their own to overcome, in a way that Manchester City and Chelsea do not (and which would not affect Spurs quite so much, seeing as no one expects too much of them most years, aside from in the FA Cup every decade or so; even if this is their best side in years).
The secret to winning the title will be handling the pressure, and Arsenal, as well as Liverpool, have historical weights that won’t work in their favour. We want it bad; almost too much. We are desperate, all of us.
That said, Liverpool look as good as anyone this season – and possibly better than anyone else going forward – and remain joint-top of the table (we can ignore goal difference for now) despite 60% of the Reds’ league games being away.
The goal difference is obviously adversely affected by the difficulty of playing away more often, as well as the fact that Liverpool have already faced Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, Man United and Leicester. And of course, everyone who has already played Sunderland will soon have to forfeit the points, once the league declares them to be a League Two team playing in the top flight by deceit.
And while it won’t make Liverpool better, not being in Europe is one less thing to potentially make the Reds worse. Chelsea also have that ‘luxury’, but of course, it also made it harder to scout A-list players this summer, and to retain the best talents already on the books. It’s not as if teams out of Europe often win the Premier League title, is it? It hardly makes life easy.
Another bonus with Klopp is that he doesn’t want superstars anyway – his training methods, tactical approach and inspirational style miraculously end up making everyone look better. The brilliant Daniel Sturridge is struggling to get a game, because he’s not quite as much of a team player as Roberto Firmino; and while Sturridge will hopefully stay until at least next summer (because he’s a big talent and an elite finisher), it’s hard to argue when the team wins without you.
The work-rate of the centre-forward/s sets the tone for the team as a whole, and Leicester’s surprise success last season was built upon two of those. Sturridge is not lazy, and his sublime talent helps the Reds to win games; but when Firmino plays the team seems to further exceed the sum of its parts. This is Klopp’s way.
And yet, as I pondered in depth in midweek, the depth of Liverpool’s squad is astonishing – especially when considering the profit made in the summer. You can be an excellent player and not even make the bench these days – it’s that tough.
Even at the time the lack of massive spending struck me as Klopp’s wish – I’m fairly sure that was more money was there, if he wanted it. But he didn’t. More churn would mean a greater loss of understanding, both on the pitch and in terms of group togetherness. Big fees would possibly mean big egos too.
Big spending is often the shortcut to success – there’s no getting around that – but a lot of the best players who change hands on the transfer market have been coached to high levels in the first place. Upon moving they have to adjust to new surroundings, new tactics, new relationships, new pecking orders, new expectations, and new homes within new cities, maybe even new countries; as well as often playing under the burden of a hefty price tag.
Really elite coaching can elevate players to new standards, and that’s what Klopp and his trusty lieutenants are doing. It didn’t happen overnight, but equally, it’s not taken him and his staff too long either. It helps that they arrived with a strong vision, and set about implementing it, with the transfer committee’s help (rather than working against it).
It’s also about finding the right types of character – talented, but with a good mentality, and who will work their knackers off for the cause. Put those together in the same team (after some supreme fitness training), with a manager whose own style makes it hard for anyone to coast, and sparks will fizz and fly.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate! By Paul Tomkins

https://tomkinstimes.com/2016/10/hate-hate-hate-hate-hate/


In By Paul TomkinsFreeSubscribers Only

PART ONE
We hate Nottingham Forest. We hate Everton too. We hate Man United… (and Chelsea, Arsenal, City, Spurs, … et al.)
Of course, hating something is often as a result of it being a threat – to your own personal health, to your happiness or to your way of life. Right now, plenty of teams are out to sabotage our happiness as Liverpool fans.
Part of the must-win mania surrounding modern football is just how there seems to be a grudge wherever you look. Indeed, modern society seems to be about divisiveness, and the pitting of different groups against one another; as if, despite some progress, there’s also been a regression in recent years.
These days football almost feels as much about wanting another club – or indeed, clubs – to lose as your own club to win; schadenfreude being its own kind of ‘success’ in the banterverse. Social media obviously heightens this, as does the media coverage and the way everything now has to be about confrontation – with the internet providing lots of relatively new ways to argue with the ill-informed, and be wound up by keyboard warriors. In the past you’d rarely run into fans of certain clubs; now they can contact you (or pop up on your Twitter and Facebook feeds) at will. The more we celebrate our own uniqueness – and big-up our differences to others – the more we demean everyone else.
As I’ve posited before, the way games are spread out over an increasingly long weekend only adds to the angst. By the time Liverpool face Man United at Anfield I’ve already sat through (or checked scores for) several other games, in the hope that rivals slip up. I have a healthy respect for what Spurs and their manager are doing, but when they are losing in the 88th minute in the game against West Brom it feels almost like three points for Liverpool; then, when they equalise a minute later, it feels like Liverpool have dropped two points, when all that happened was Spurs gained one, and Liverpool weren’t even in action. When Arsenal hold on with ten men to beat Swansea it feels like another defeat, as does Chelsea thrashing Leicester. And when Pep Guardiola’s exiting Man City side can only draw with Everton it feels like Liverpool have gained two points, although Everton also getting a point feels like another point lost. All this and Liverpool haven’t even played yet.
In the old days there was nothing beyond the half-time and full-time announcements of the other results at Anfield (unless you took a radio to the game, which was reserved for end-of-season deciders). If you weren’t at the game you could follow it at home on the radio, but all the action across the country still took place within the same 90 minutes (and then, after a while, one game on Sunday afternoons). That 90 minutes could be agonising, but it was just one part of your weekend. Now, football impinges on yourentire weekend. And then it continues most days of the week, with no respite from the news, views and banter.
Whilst immersed in the action at the game there was never any time to think about, analyse and fret over how everyone else was doing – you found out seconds after the final whistle, and whatever had happened happened. You might hear that a rival won 4-2, but without knowledge of how that game unfolded there could be no investment in hope during the part when they were actually 2-0 behind.
Now it’s a kind of water torture, drawn out for days on end. It means we can find ourselves on edge on a Friday night, a Saturday lunchtime, a Saturday afternoon, a Saturday evening, a Sunday lunchtime and a Sunday afternoon, with all that emotional energy spent before our team even gets to play, on the Monday night.
The fact that every game seems must-win makes a rival’s defeat feel all the better, but only makes you more on edge if your game is up last and everyone else has won. Every single week it feels like the whole world is riding on the result, and that’s not healthy. A must-win game used to describe an end of season encounter when, with one game left, you needed three points to secure the title, qualify for Europe or escape relegation. Now it’s used every week. We used to joke that losing a game was a crisis, but these days it often is portrayed that way.
Early season clashes are almost billed as title-deciders, with nowhere else to go for the hyperbole; Sky TV’s advert for “Red Monday” playing into the hype of today’s clash. And while any result – particularly a clash between two supposed challengers and/or title rivals – can be very meaningful, there is still an incredible amount of time left for things to change.
After three games we were in awe of Manchester City and Manchester United, with their perfect records; their new managers had come in and sorted them out, with no need to faff about with excuses about needing time (when of course, many managers actually do need time; instant good results obscuring that fact).
Then United slipped up on a few occasions and looked distinctly mediocre, as if the shine of Mourinho, Pogba and Ibrahimovic had worn off after less than a handful of games. Man City won their first ten games in all competitions, and looked invincible; and yet they’ve now failed to win any of the past three – which is hardly a disaster, but shows that they are human after all. Last season no one could see anyone but City winning the title after they won the first five league games and yet they fell away badly. Leicester and Spurs only belatedly hit the front. Various teams had spells at the top.
So this encounter tonight won’t settle anything; and a United win certainly wouldn’t make them clearly superior when all it would do is draw the teams level on points. Equally, a Liverpool win would be an obvious (but still small) addition to the weight of evidence that this is a very strong, exciting team, but it wouldn’t seal anything; and a defeat would not mean that the previous results were some kind of charade. This is a must-win game purely for the context of bragging rights, plus the fact that it could perhaps have some small psychological impact either way. But it’s not in any way decisive.
Ultimately, a defeat would still leave Liverpool on 16 points after eight games; a very healthy ratio of two points per match, especially when those matches would have included Arsenal (a), Spurs (a), Leicester (h), Chelsea (a) and Man United at home. Obviously Leicester aren’t as strong this season, but the signs are that Arsenal (doing well against anyone but Liverpool), Spurs (started this season better than last, and recently outplayed City), Chelsea (not struggling in the bottom half like last year) and United (no longer mind-numbingly dull) are all stronger. The Premier League hasn’t imported many peak-years superstars, but the massive spending has probably improved a whole host of clubs (and slowed the small flood of elite talent to Spain).
Whatever happens in a one-off game can still be fairly random (there’s always the possibility to play well and lose), but the added anxiety surrounding this game is that it feels like this could really be a special Liverpool side going places, and this defeat would feel like a sharp detour on that journey; a failed test.
But you can’t pass every test that comes your way; Leicester certainly didn’t last season – losing at Liverpool, for a start. They simply passed enough tests. During Liverpool’s halcyon years the Reds often lost to clearly inferior United sides, and during the period of United domination there were spells, particularly around the mid-to-latter parts of the Evans, Houllier and Benítez tenures, when Liverpool got the better of a side that still went on to win the title. Whoever won the battle often didn’t win the war.
The difference now is that both clubs appear to be fallen giants looking for some kind of revival; and with Liverpool a fraction ahead with theirs. When Liverpool’s dynasty collapsed at the start of the 1990s it was United who usurped them (although Liverpool fell below several other clubs during the Graeme Souness years).
United then went on to dominate from 1992/93 onwards in a similar way – a few more league titles during their heyday than the Reds, but fewer European Cups. But what’s perhaps most interesting is how United have almost mirrored Liverpool in falling from obvious title contenders to being outside the top echelons once the key manager was replaced, despite making record-breaking transfers, and trying new bosses, to try and recapture past glories.
My theory is that a certain sense of invincibility builds up around a successful big club over a number of years (or even during a season, as seen with Leicester), but that once that bubble is burst it actually becomes harder in the aftermath to get the most out of what may be an equally talented side. It’s not necessarily momentum, but a fear factor, especially with so much of all sport being about mindset.
This remains what Sky (and many fans) see as the biggest game in English football, yet Liverpool haven’t won the title in 26 years. And yet over that period of time, the Reds have retained the cachet of an elite club, and the pressures that go with it – such as everyone seeing it as a scalp to beat them. It’s odd to remain a scalp even though you’re far from unbeatable, and I wonder if the same is true of the England team: this country retains one of the stellar names of world football on account of its history within the game, but has not been a stellar side (or had a plethora of stellar players) for donkey’s years. Opponents still raise their game against England even though, in order to get a result, they no longer have to.
Once the magic is gone, and the spell is broken – and by this I just mean the aura rather than anything actually supernatural – the pressure to match greatness from the past becomes a burden. It was interesting to read that Alex Ferguson claimed he rarely used the infamous ‘hairdryer’ rant, and was more concerned with removing the pressure from his players. By the end – just like Liverpool in 1990 – Ferguson was able to win the title with a relatively mediocre side compared to a handful of years earlier, but the winning habit had lived on. Now it’s gone.
In a way it’s like Paul McCartney still being Paul McCartney even though he hasn’t done anythingobjectively brilliant since 1970. He’s clearly not what he once was, but of course, he’s undoubtedly still the same actual human being (although there was talk of a body swap many years ago).
Similarly, Liverpool and Manchester United are still representative of their histories, whether or not they can match the levels that made them so famous in the first place. That’s what makes this such a weightyencounter. It comes with a ton of baggage.
But stoking the hatred – as always happens around such games – worries me, particularly in this age of rapidly increasing hate, where we appear to be forgetting the lessons of the past.
The second part of this article is for subscribers only.
PART TWO
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Kloppocolypse Now! A Detailed Assessment of Klopp’s First Year - By Paul Tomkins

https://tomkinstimes.com/2016/10/kloppocolypse-now-a-detailed-assessment-of-klopps-first-year/

In By Paul TomkinsFreeSubscribers Only
PART ONE
The fact that so many people expected Jürgen Klopp to arrive with a bagful of miracles has possibly undermined the achievements of the charismatic German in his first full year at the club. Anyone describing it as mediocre or underwhelming is clearly not paying attention.
Arrivals partway through a season are always more complicated than those appointed in the summer, although there are some managers who can make a short-term impact by changing little except the mood of the place. In stark contrast with some managers – those who merely offer an arm around the shoulder and say three words as their detailed tactical prep (“four, four, two”) – Klopp has a philosophy, and a well-known one too. He may motivate, but he’s not simply a motivator.
Of course, he could also have made a short-term impact by being a larger-than-life über-star and doing little more, had he chosen that more simplistic approach: keep doing what you’re doing for now lads, only with added confidence, and all will be well. But instead he tried to impose his new ideas – too soon, according to Frank de Boer, who put Liverpool’s subsequent injury crisis down to pushing too hard too fast (although de Boer’s start to life at Inter Milan, with just three wins from nine games and a mid-table position, perhaps shows that it’s never quite that simple).
Klopp delayed instant gratification – the possibility of a few nice early wins playing the Brendan Rodgers way, with no real new instructions – and immediately implemented his own style, perhaps knowing that it therefore meant more teething problems. It’s tough to switch to a hard-pressing style from a more passive approach, and even harder when the fitness regime hadn’t prepared the players for that kind of game over the summer. Results were a mixed bag, and injuries mounted up.
But of course, Klopp – one of the few managers left who plays the long-term game (in a sport where the short-term game is often the only one anyone has the patience for) – showed that he hadn’t done seven years at Mainz and seven years at Dortmund – both with slow-burning starts – because he cared about a few quick, satisfying results at the expense of the bigger picture. Like any manager he’d clearly rather win while his team is in transition – no one wants the pressure that comes with defeats – but either way,this team was going to be put into transition. Rather than trying to find workarounds to the team’s heart condition – taking it easy, being gentle, pussyfooting around – he performed a transplant, and all the pain that brings in recovery.
There were no new signings last season, and yet there were still a ton of changes – to fitness, to tactics and to the personnel plucked from the deeper reaches of the squad. He didn’t feel the need to protect his own ego by being an instant smash, and he must have known that the gain of getting players fitter would only first come with the pain of falling short.
So results were patchy, as players picked up muscle strains, and as the insane schedule left little option to play the kids and the reserves in some cup and Premier League matches.
No one was rushed back to fitness; again, Klopp plays the long-game. Want to throw Daniel Sturridge back early to grab a result? – no. (It’s understandable why Brendan Rodgers felt the need, but not only has Klopp made no exceptions for Sturridge, the player himself is no longer the only goal option, and is now simply part of a goalscoring squad.) Anyone who doesn’t train in the build-up to a game doesn’t play. No player is therefore deemed bigger than the team. Want to play in your favourite position? No – you’ll play where the team needs you, and so that it’s not a singling out on all these issues, everyone else will do the same. Don’t like it? Tough, there are 25 other guys here, plus the kids – and still some money in the kitty.
When people compared Klopp’s start to Rodgers’ entire tenure – the win rates, etc. – I felt there were issues that were being missed out on; such as just 40% of Rodgers’ games coming without “adequate” preparation time (the handicap of just two, three or four days beforehand), whereas Klopp had awhopping 80% of games last season falling within this gruelling schedule. While managers have to deal with seasons that include a greater number of games than the norm of 45-50 (if it includes even a half-decent cup run), the challenges are tougher if he’s thrown into a 63-game campaign, especially if not given the chance to mould the squad himself.
Analysing the First Year
When I assessed how his first eight months had gone at the end of 2015/16, in a detailed piece that took into account the quality of XIs Klopp fielded and the difficulty of fixtures (based on quality of opponent, whether played home or away, and also how many days earlier the previous game had been), I looked at which players Klopp seemed to rate, and who suited his system.
In that piece from May I noted that there were 13 players who Klopp turned to most often – the most frequently selected, but also those he seemed to try and squeeze into his “best” XI whenever possible (although obviously not all would fit at once). This varied, depending on form, of course – and as he himself tried to work out which players he could trust – so there were times when Divock Origi was ahead of Daniel Sturridge, but the sense I got was that both were very highly valued.
(As an aside here, while I don’t take everything a manager says to the media at face value, it’s important to try and read a situation; so when Klopp said that Sturridge was an even better footballer than he’d thought – he was not just an elite finisher – it seemed to me like an honest assessment rather than just talking the player up. I don’t recall Klopp’s praise being as effusive about Christian Benteke, for example, even if he noted his qualities. He didn’t want to keep Benteke because he didn’t suit his style of play, but his words suggested he would love to work with Sturridge, but only if he was fit.)
I called the ones who often made Klopp’s XI his “100%” players. That doesn’t mean that they are 100% perfect, but they would be in his 100%-strength XIs based on the players at his disposal. (Again, in an ideal world he may have some different players, but this is what he has chosen to work with, within the circumstances he faces.)
What’s interesting is that all 13 players are still at the club, although Mamadou Sakho came close to leaving – but of course, that was due to several complicated issues rather than on-field performances. (Klopp clearly liked the player – at least until the events of the tail-end of last season and the summer.)
Due to his late return from Euro 2016, and subsequent injuries, Emre Can has yet to start a league game in 2016/17, but you still sense that Klopp wholeheartedly believes in him, and rightly so; but that he won’t change a successful team on a whim. This season, Klopp doesn’t have to field the midfield compromises (to him) of Joe Allen and Lucas Leiva (now mostly a centre-back, it seems), and even Can only gets a look-in as a squad player right now.
Indeed, even James Milner doesn’t have to compete in an area of the field where Jordan Henderson, Gini Wijnaldum and Adam Lallana have become first-choices; all as part of moving several quality attacking players one row back within the team structure. That said, when Can does play, he won’t be “weakening” the team; he’ll just be a different kind of player to whomever he replaces. So he’s still “100%” in my eyes.
But are all of the 13 players I mentioned from 2015/16 still “100%” ? Well, no. Last season Alberto Moreno was without doubt Klopp’s only properly trusted left-back (as seen with how the quick but clunky Brad Smith was briefly tested and then sold), and the Spaniard started this season with the manager’s full backing. But Moreno played himself out of contention, and now Milner is the 100% choice, with the ex-Sevilla man, while still liked by the manager, no longer an “equal” of the vice-captain. (The fact that Klopp still sings Moreno’s praises and says he’s been the best player in training shows that he still likes him. Again, a manager doesn’t say stuff like that unless he means it – not least because the other players would lose trust in the boss if it was patently not true to them during the week, if they were training better and harder. For instance, no one ever said Mario Balotelli was the best in training.)
So far I’ve found that there are also 13 “100%” players this season, but the key difference is that I would rate several of the non-100% players – those outside the favoured XI – as not being too far off: Origi at 90% (having dropped down slightly in the pecking order with Sturridge’s increased fitness – there seems a clear hierarchy right now); and Klavan and Moreno at 80%.
Even Simon Mignolet at 90%, but with this rating less to do with the keeper’s qualities and more to do with the fact that the first-choice (i.e. 100%) keeper – Loris Karius – is fairly young and new to the league, and that Mignolet hasn’t done anything wrong this term. If I were to reassess this later in the season it may be that Mignolet is back at “100%”, and by then Karius is someone Klopp avoids at all costs – although I presume he will be patient, and instead stick with his compatriot throughout the baptism of fire that comes with being thrown into the Premier League for a high-profile (and potentially title-challenging) team partway through the season.
So it still irks me now when people talk of inconsistency last season, especially with the heaviest schedule in Europe undertaken with a mixed-bag of a squad and the attempt at a change of direction in playing style and fitness. Until a couple of poor results, people were talking about the instant impact Pep Guardiola had made at City in no time at all, but he’d had a preseason with an expensive squad that included world-class players who were recently champions (2014), and he’d brought in half a dozen players and shipped out plenty more. (Even so, he should still be expected to improve with further time.) And comparisons with Brendan Rodgers ignore that Rodgers always had full preseasons, and started the job by instantly bringing in some of his own players.
Last season an astonishing 38 players made an appearance for Liverpool – 37 of whom did so under Klopp (only Joe Gomez missed out after he took charge) – and anyone looking for consistency or excellence in such a scenario is seriously deluded. The circumstances for consistency just weren’t there.
Crucially, players like Joe Allen and Martin Skrtel had become “60%” and “50%” players respectively – Klopp would use them, but he wasn’t working out ways to get them into the XI. He clearly liked Allen, but not quite enough. And of course, I assigned these players those subjective values in May, before the summer window opened, and it was therefore no surprise that they were sold. If Allen had been a 90% player for Klopp an effort would have been made to retain him.
You could say that this point that Klavan (80%) is clearly a ‘reserve’ Klopp would be happy to use, whereas Skrtel (50%) was almost avoided at all costs as last season wore on. These may not seem like big distinctions – two players at the same age, traded for roughly the same fee (c.£5m) – but Klavan has built a career on being the epitome of steadiness and on the flexibility to also play full-back, whereas Skrtel was either brilliant or hopeless, and only ever a centre-half. And of course, Skrtel, like a punch-drunk boxer, had become part of the institutionalised failure at Liverpool.
By the end of  last season, someone like Kevin Stewart was a 40% player – used in what were essentially the B-team games, and a player who may have faded away with new arrivals (having started the season as maybe a 10% player, if that). Now, however, I’d guess that Stewart is up to 60% – Klopp knows he can trust him, and has already given him Premier League minutes this term; but also, if everyone is fit, Stewart probably doesn’t make the bench, let alone the XI.
A year into Klopp’s reign, it’s possible to see who he really likes and who he doesn’t, although almost all of the latter have been shipped out, and the sense is that, at this point, he rates everyone at his disposal. Others will still go on to disappoint this season – not everyone in a big squad can be at the top of their game all the time – but no one is of the wrong temperament or playing style for the manager.
So, with this all in mind, it’s possible to look at the results his Liverpool have got with “strong” XIs – team averages on strength of what I perceive to be 90% and above. And while the numbers I use are clearly subjective, they are based on Klopp’s selections (with a hierarchy of choice easiest to discern at those points when everyone is fit), and which I believe are entirely logical.
It’s also possible to rank the difficulty of matches, using the system I devised at the end of last season for the article I mentioned, to see how Klopp’s tenure from October 2015 to October 2016 has panned out, given nine further games since the end of last term.
And what I said at the end of 2015/16 – based on Klopp’s excellent results when he could pick a strong team – seems to be backed up in what has happened so far this season, where every single selection (even in two League Cup games) has been over 90%, whereas last season he only fielded this kind of strength in just over a third of his games. In other words, Liverpool  were either reasonably or significantly weakened in two-thirds of his games, for a variety of reasons.
The difference this season is that the “deadwood” has been offloaded, and now the bench is comprised of players Klopp really likes – we can all see that for ourselves, without the need to assign numbers (the numbers simply help to quantify it) – rather than the odd mixture of players left over from several previous bosses; and that although injuries and illness have kept out players like Mané, Coutinho and Firmino so far this season, it’s mostly been one player at a time, one game at a time, with no serious build-up of absentees and no key player out for weeks or months. And so we have a situation where Sturridge is finding it difficult to dislodge Firmino, but he gets into the team when any of the aforementioned trio are out, for no perceptible loss of quality – he’s just a different kind of top-notch player.
In the 19 “+90%” games of last season – the strong selections – the Reds averaged 1.8 points per game (with cup results converted to points), which is pretty decent but unspectacular. However, the difficulty rating for these 19 matches on a scale of 0-6 (with 0 being at home to abject opposition; 6 away to the very best sides) was 4.0, clearly above the “normal” range of fixtures of 3.0. (The difficulty rating was essentially a simple 1-5 in terms of opposition quality, with 1 point added if away, and 1 point deducted if at home.)
This is because Liverpool didn’t have a normal season. In a 38-game Premier League season you face the full gamut of opponents, home 19 times and away 19 times, and there’s a 3.0 average. And of course, Liverpool haven’t had a normal season this year either – at an average of 4.1 in the league based on seven matches so far, five of which were away, with four of the seven games “big” clashes.
Last season, Liverpool faced two extra matches against Manchester United, which are always tense occasions – results before and after can be affected by the spectre of such clashes. There was a League Cup final against Manchester City, and again, you can expect some “conserving” before such encounters, and I think the League Cup can be a poisoned chalice because a cup final mid-season is destabilising (logically, they should always be at the end of the season, but there’s no room with other cup competitions).
Liverpool played Borussia Dortmund twice, which was a gargantuan test – with the euphoria of winning against all odds followed by the low of the comedown that follows any high. Liverpool then played Villarreal twice, and as such, to lose 3-1 at Swansea in between these games becomes more understandable – it’s not a mark of inconsistency but merely a reality of sporting life. And to draw 1-1 at West Brom (with nothing at stake) three days before the Europa League final against Sevilla is equally understandable. As I said in May, this was the fog that shrouded the true quality of Klopp’s Reds.
The difference this season is that in the seven league games – with a difficulty rating almost 40% greater than the norm – the Reds have average 2.3ppg, or 87 points pro-rata. (And that ppg would therefore be higher if I added some weighting on account of the fixture difficulty – you don’t play a 38-game campaign that includes Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and Leicester six times, and which has 30 away games and only eight at home.)
Add the two relatively easy away cup games and the difficulty level drops to 3.4 from 4.1, but the ppg rises to 2.4, or a 91-point season pro rata on 38 games.
And again, even this 91-point season would still be tougher on paper than the norm, with the clear weakness of Burton and Derby (away) still not fully mitigating the five Premier League away games and four big clashes, out of seven played. None of this is to say that Liverpool will go on to hit 90 points – even with a good tailwind that seems unlikely, and we must always expect the unexpected – but it puts the quality seen in the season so far into context.
Add both seasons together, to form the entire 28 games where Klopp has fielded a +90% team, and the average is 2ppg – worthy of a 76-point season – but again, that’s with a difficulty ranking about a third higher than the norm (and a Klopp 100% side last season was not as good as his 100% side this season).
By stark and revealing contrast, the 33 games where he fielded (by choice or otherwise) weaker XIs yields just 1.6ppg (equivalent to a 61-point pro rata season), even though the average difficulty of those fixtures is bang-on the average of 3.0. Again, as noted, due to squad reconstruction and a lack of an injury crisis so far in 2016/17, none of these games is from this season.
Look at the following three graphs, in case my words haven’t convinced you. Each graph has two axes, covering two of the three different measures: average XI strength (out of 100%); average points per game (range of 0-3); and average match difficulty (0-6). So closely do the results mirror each other that I had to triple-check if I wasn’t just using the data from the previous chart.
For the charts, grey is points per game; red is strength of LFC XI; and salmon is fixture difficulty.
match-difficulty-vs-team-strengthmatch-difficulty-vs-ppg2
average-team-strength-vs-ppg
It gets slightly confusing in terms of the overlap in results because last season Klopp tended to pick his strongest XIs for the toughest games – which makes sense, given that he wanted his best players fit for the massive match-ups, which came thick and fast, and when it came to the likes of Exeter in the cup, or league games sandwiched between massive European games, he had little choice but to heavily rotate. A manager totally happy with his squad, with a greater number of trustworthy players in reserve, doesn’t have to scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of selection, injury crises aside. Remember, this was also a manager learning about his players, from the established to the youthful prospects.
We see that his points-per-game was better in the big matches – leading to to certain perceptions – even though the difficulty was greater, because his XI was stronger. People obviously said that Liverpool only got “up” for the bigger games, but the squad was spread far too thinly in many other encounters. When his XI was weaker, even though the games were easier on paper, the points per game dropped off – Liverpool were there for the taking, often in unfamiliar line-ups (and not because they weren’t up for it).
Again, this is due to the abnormal number of tough cup fixtures, where Klopp had to balance fitness concerns with winning the most important matches as the season unfolded – and priorities shift depending on what’s happening. After all, we can all say the league is the priority, but that was already “lost” when Klopp arrived; and who would have wanted him to go all-out versus Swansea and West Brom when, given that it was May, they’d become meaningless compared to the Europa League?
The only disappointing points-per-game figures within my breakdown come from last season; the first two columns on the graph are from this season, and they show that the Reds have an above-average PPG despite above average fixture difficulty.
One other thing I looked at in my article from May was an allowance for Klopp’s newness (and therefore the lack of time to fully address fitness and tactical issues) that diminished with time passed – and this again only highlighted that his effectiveness was masked.
It showed that the stronger XIs he picked early on didn’t necessarily know how to play the Klopp way; or if they did, they didn’t have the stamina to do so adequately. They were strong on paper, but not strong on understanding and fitness; both of which would logically be better by the spring months. In between – around December time – came an injury crisis. At this point there was neither understanding nor fitness, and in many cases, weaker player selections.
With the passage of time, results for his best XIs did indeed improve; but with time came more fixtures, more rotation, and more weakened XIs, which muddied the waters.
Now…
Now, even with three or four injuries the XI-quality can remain above 90%, whereas last season it couldn’t. To put in Origi now – the third-choice centre-forward behind Firmino and Sturridge – would be nothing to worry about; whereas last season, to put in Benteke – for whom the team was not set up, and where the player was lacking confidence (and carrying a big price tag) – was to clearly weaken the XI.
The challenge this season will be when players like Lucas (best days behind him, certainly as a midfielder), Klavan (very good but not elite), Stewart (improving but not yet a major force), Ings (good player but not elite, and hasn’t started a senior game in a year after serious injury), Ojaria (a possible future star but only 18) and Grujic (massive potential but still only 20 and adapting to England) are all called upon – either all together, or three, four or five them at the same time. Suddenly the XI will clearly be below 90% – these are, for now, back-up players, along with one or two others.
But of course, there aren’t likely to be sufficient games to throw these in, as Klopp has kept it strong even in the League Cup (because there’s no Europe on top), and with less likelihood of an all-out injury crisis with no chance of another 63-game season.
We also shouldn’t be seeing too much of the equivalents of Brad Smith (quick but raw and limited), Adam Bogdan (nervous wreck), Jose Enrique (totally disinterested outcast thrown into a few cup games), and even Christian Benteke (good Premier League striker totally unsuited to the manager’s style) – because no such equivalents are anywhere near the squad. Even the worst players this season should be much better than the worst from last season, and there will be nobody hopelessly out of kilter with the manager’s ideas.
Again, this is not being wise after the event – all this was covered in the article from May.
The second part of this article is for subscribers only.

PART TWO

Liverpool At Their Best Under Klopp Look Sensational
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Proof that Liverpool CAN Win the League - By Paul Tomkins

https://tomkinstimes.com/2016/10/proof-that-liverpool-can-win-the-league/

In By Paul TomkinsFreeSubscribers Only

PART ONE

Proof Positive
While it’s still only seven league games (plus two cup games away from home), Liverpool – incredibly – have now played seven away fixtures in all competitions, and only two at Anfield. We know why, but that’s more than three times as many matches on the road, when most seasons you’d probably expect to pick up only half as many points on your travels.
And yet even with this most lopsided start – including games against four of the contenders for the top four (and maybe the title) – the Reds are up to 2nd in the table, before Sunday’s games offer the chance of changing that.
What made it even more impressive was how “at it” Swansea were – this was no passive opposition, but a team who, desperate for a win, tried to match Liverpool are their own game, and whose crowd, on top of being buoyed by an early goal, were putting pressure on the referee to give them every decision. (Daniel Sturridge got booed for being fouled in the box, booed for being elbowed in the mouth, and Sadio Mané got booed for having six studs dug into his boot. That’s before getting onto the ludicrous offside calls. A weak referee caved in too often.)
The main worries before the season were if Liverpool could become sufficiently good at home (because last season the Reds seemed more set-up to counter-attack), and whether they were playing at home or away, banish the problems against packed defences. Last season Liverpool went behind early at Watford from a set-piece, but the difference to what happened at Swansea was clear to see; even if the set-piece issues remain. Teams will create chances against Liverpool, but it doesn’t look chaotic.
Liverpool added some height in the summer, as was clearly needed, but Joel Matip aside, the taller arrivals (and even Emre Can and Divock Origi) are on the bench – or in Grujic’s case not even making the 18 at Swansea – with the smaller technicians in the front six playing so well that set-pieces are less of an issue than it was last season, a) because the Reds are having more of the ball to deny set-pieces in the first place, and b) because they are mostly scoring at least two goals a game to put the pressure back on the opposition. One area of aerial improvement is James Milner replacing Alberto Moreno, but two 5’9” full-backs, allied to relatively small midfielders and strikers, means there will always be chances, especially if the delivery is good.
Of course, it helps that the addition of a smaller player, in Sadio Mané, still makes for an upgrade on last season’s XI, and the trio of Adam Lallana, Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino – all under 6’0” – are looking quicker, sharper and fitter. Out of nowhere, Nathaniel Clyne has also found quality in the final third, to make him look like the complete full-back, and at left-back, James Milner offers steadiness and solidity that was absent last year (whilst still providing a forward threat). The extra fitness of the players, and the extra focus on team patterns, has made almost everyone more effective.
Right now it feels that even if the Reds go behind to an early set-piece goal there’s sufficient belief within the team of its own quality to get something back.
As I suspected it would be, Burnley remains the blip, but otherwise the mounting data shows that Liverpool are now serious title contenders, if still not favourites. Everything looks set for Jürgen Klopp’s side to make a challenge, including the lack of European games – which doesn’t miraculously make you a better team, but does remove an obstacle that can end up making you look worse.
It’s not the most expensive squad, but Klopp has succeeded in taking a lot of mid-priced players and making them look like they are worth three times what was paid.
Few managers can do that – particularly with pretty much every player, as usually you find that a manager gets the best out of three or four (often at one end of the pitch or the other, but rarely both), while others fade away. Under Klopp, you can say that Firmino, Lallana (edit: I knew I’d forget an obvious one!), Coutinho, Henderson (now fit), Can, Clyne, Lovren, Milner, Origi and Sakho have improved, either last season and/or this, with possibly only Daniel Sturridge going backwards (but on the back of almost 18 months out, and still remains such a great player to watch).
And of course – somewhat rarely – all of the new buys have appeared to settle quickly. That said. as is almost always the case, not all of them can play at once, and so someone like Grujic, for example – a young, promising player who looks set to have a stellar career – is in danger of being labelled a flop by the uninformed because of a lack of game time; the same applies to the ‘reserve’ Ragnar Klavan, although like Grujic, he’s mostly looked the part in his cameos so far. Perhaps it helps that Matip, Mané and Wijnaldum are the only regulars in the outfield ten, which is much easier than trying to find cohesion with five or six in there. But add the new goalkeeper and that’s still four additions in the XI, three of whom are in key central positions.
Some of the overall improvement to the existing players is due to time spent at the club, and the adjustment to the expectations, as well as the way teammates play (and the tactics the manager uses). And that has carried along the new players, with Mané, in particular, able to have a strong preseason.
A key part of the improvement – across the whole squad – is down to fitness, with the potential increase in injury risk (which will enrage a faux doctor somewhere in Holland) currently offset by far greater distances covered (with and without the ball), and the fact that the bench looks stronger than at any time in years. Indeed, fit and hungry players are coming in, so when Sturridge is absent, or Coutinho, or now Lallana, others step in and step up. The only worry would be an injury crisis where almost all of them are absent at once (and Mané will be off to the African Nations Cup in the new year, meaning that injuries to other key players at that time could be more costly).
The home record so far is 100%, nine goals scored and two conceded. And after a listless first half at Swansea, the Reds have, for the second time this season, come from behind away from home to win with a scintillating second-half display.
It’s often difficult to find extra gears when there’s a sloppy start. Add an injury to one of the three best players so far this season, a yellow card for a technical foul by the captain, plus a goal conceded (poorly, but where the were offsides in the build-up and possibly even on the finish itself) and it looked grim. On top of that, Sturridge was booked for diving for the same kind of foul that Henderson was earlier punished for, meaning it looked like the classic “one of those days”.
Nothing was going right early in the half, with the Reds off the pace, and with the Brazilian pair of Coutinho and Firmino particularly quiet, as if the international break was on their minds. But no, the duo came out after the interval and absolutely tore Swansea to ribbons, with the able assistance of Sadio Mané and Daniel Sturridge, and with Nathaniel Clyne playing like a full-back, winger and wide midfielder – apparently in all three positions at the same time. (This is what elite fitness can do.)
While this site has looked at a lot of published studies into momentum, and whether or not it’s a myth (winning one game certainly doesn’t appear to alter your chances of winning the next), I do think that a bank of experiences is built up, that helps to garner belief. Liverpool have now come from behind to win at Arsenal and Swansea, outplayed Spurs, thrashed Leicester (and Hull) and managed to comfortably defend a lead at Chelsea. So I think that this helps on those days when it’s not going well – providing mental reserves from which to dig. But of course, there will always be days when nothing goes well. Sometimes the ball just won’t go in.
That said, I believe that in all nine games so far the Reds have won the “statistics”. Not just possession, which is more complicated in terms of a correlation with result, but expected goals (xG), and shot differentials – meaningful stats that show how games played out, rather than the way a scoreline can be more random and display things happening against the run of play (as they did at Burnley). If you dominate every stat bar the scoreline then unless you have rubbish strikers it probably means that your strikers just had an off-day. (If it happens all the time, you have rubbish strikers. Or big problems at the other end.)
A fairly big worry, once the Reds’ comeback was complete, was a timid display from Loris Karius, who failed to come for crosses on all but one occasion, and for that one he totally missed the ball. Like Claudio Bravo at Man City, he’s a better footballer than the man he replaced, but the deposed keeper is better in the air (and Mignolet, for all his faults, is 6’4” and has learnt to punch brilliantly, and become more brave; after all, there’s not much of a nose left to squash). So we may have some scares with Karius, but equally he enabled the Reds to keep possession with his calmness on the ball – and that’s hard to quantify.
It’s just that his hesitance on crosses – not unlike Pepe Reina when he arrived at the same age – is (at least) a short-term worry, until his game can be coached to be less passive. At 6’2”, he’ll never be the most dominant in the air, but he has to learn when to come for crosses and when to stay; and the late chance for a Swansea equaliser looked like Matip was holding off the attacker to let his keeper come and claim it, but he backed away. It almost cost the Reds two extra hard-won, deserved points, and unlike Bravo at City, Karius is still a relative rookie for a keeper, having just turned 23. Like Reina before him, and David de Gea, improvements in that area can be made, but it won’t be overnight.
The lack of clean sheets would be the main worry in terms of counting out a title challenge at this stage, but the 2013/14 title race was between two teams who outscored – by double – whatever they conceded. Other seasons it can be a parsimonious defence that gains the title, and this season it could be either (or maybe a team that excels at both ends). And most of Liverpool’s goals against were conceded on the week (five in the opening eight days of the season); since when it’s not been more than one at a time. Whatever happens, Manchester City have to remain the clear favourites.
However, I have a few more ideas on what’s going right at the moment. Read on for more reasons why Liverpool can win the league, including the nuclear fusion generated by Roberto Firmino’s teeth.

PART TWO

More Reasons Why the Reds Can Win the League
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