Why Liverpool Will Win Trophies This Season
With serious money spend this summer and the right man in charge, Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool could be serious contenders for both domestic and European honours this season.
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00:00 Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, Jose Mourinho at Chelsea
00:10 the first time, Jose Mourinho at Chelsea the second time. As Nelly Furtado once famously
00:15 asked, why do all good things come to an end? Liverpool fans are perhaps wondering that
00:20 more than just about anybody else at the start of this season. Jürgen Klopp is now the longest
00:25 reigning manager in the Premier League, and it's weird to think of him being the oldest,
00:28 wisest head, yet he became a grandad over the summer break. And just looking around
00:32 at rivals, Arsenal and Newcastle both have dynamic young managers who may well have barely
00:37 started their careers. Tottenham and Chelsea are both embarking on brand new eras and will
00:42 have new philosophies to match. Things look exciting at Brighton and Aston Villa, who
00:47 both have Europe to look forward to this season too. But that doesn't mean that Klopp is on
00:52 the descent, far from it actually, even after a disappointing season last year, because
00:57 for all the exciting bosses around the country these days, Klopp is the only one of them
01:01 who's ever wrestled the title away from Pep Guardiola. He's won everything at Liverpool
01:05 and whisper it, but he could be about to do it all again. Because this is Liverpool Mk
01:10 2, the second chapter of this all-conquering beast of a side that the German is recalibrating.
01:16 This is why Liverpool are going to be alright in the end, and how the Reds will still compete
01:21 this season.
01:22 Jurgen Klopp's first transfer at Anfield was the mighty Marco Gurić. His second was
01:28 Steven Kalka on loan, which doesn't exactly give us much of a clue of how he was going
01:32 to transform the Premier League. Klopp, that is, not Kalka. Nah, thanks Steven. But those
01:37 early years were proper exciting. Show of hands, who remembers the 4-1 over Man City
01:42 away from home really early in Klopp's reign? Okay, more of a classic here. Who remembers
01:47 the 5-4 over Norwich when the Reds went bananas at full-time and Klopp lost his glasses? There
01:53 was a 6-0 over Aston Villa in his first season, that was a laugh. Then there was a 4-0 over
01:58 Everton in the derby, which was fun. And then the following season started with a 4-3 over
02:03 Arsenal, then a 4-1 over Leicester, a 5-1 over Hull, and a 6-1 over Watford in the first
02:08 three months of the season.
02:10 You see, when Pep Guardiola came in at Man City, he built from the back, signing Claudio
02:15 Bravo, John Stones, Ederson, Karl Walker, Danilo, Benjamin Mendy and Aymeric Laporte
02:21 all within his first two years. Klopp's first big major signing, apart from super Steven
02:27 Kalka of course, was Sadio Mane, and that set a very different tone, because when he
02:32 built Liverpool, he built them from the front backwards. Alisson and Van Dijk were almost
02:37 finishing touches to this team.
02:39 Is history repeating itself? Well, maybe. I mean, I can't promise that every game is
02:44 going to be as bonkers as that win against Tottenham last season, and the dying seconds,
02:48 as incredible as that would be, but Liverpool are about to be a lot more fun again, and
02:52 they're going to be formidable in big games.
02:54 That's what always separated Jürgen from Pep. Guardiola loves control. He built a winning
03:00 machine at City, with interchangeable parts that didn't even need to rely on individuals
03:04 thinking outside the box, just players knowing their roles and where to stand at any given
03:08 moment. You don't need me to tell you that Pep's a genius, and that's not to dumb
03:12 down his philosophy of those early years at City, but the one downside was that it didn't
03:17 always work in the heat of the big moments. It cost him in the Champions League for a
03:21 long time. Klopp on the other hand, revels in the sheer chaos of those European nights.
03:26 His Liverpool team were always more about the players than the system, and he had more
03:29 success in Europe while Pep was scooping up his first few Premier League trophies. Klopp
03:34 loves a leader, just look at the players he signed this summer.
03:37 Alexis McAllister was as cold as ice for Argentina in the World Cup, keeping his country
03:42 tick along in the midfield all the way to the trophy. And the way that he handled his
03:46 last few months at Brighton, knowing that he wanted to go, showed a level of maturity
03:50 that perhaps Brighton fans would like to see from a few others. And Dominic Sabozlai is
03:54 just 22, already the captain of his national side. Look at Cody Gakpo, signed in January,
04:00 who stepped up in the World Cup when few others did for the Netherlands. Or even Darwin Nunez
04:05 signed last year. Look, I know he's not everybody's cup of tea, but in the Champions League already,
04:09 he scored against Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, a very good Ajax side, and,
04:15 well, Liverpool. Back when Klopp began at Liverpool, he brought
04:19 in players with this unpredictability and knack for making things happen on the big
04:23 stage, and he relied on players with a big game mentality. There's a reason that the
04:27 only team capable of knocking them out in Europe for so long just happened to be the
04:31 only other team with more bottle. Liverpool have evolved in the last few years to have
04:36 more control and be less counter-attacking, but now they're evolving to become less
04:40 controlled than recent seasons, as Sabozlai, Curtis Jones and Nunez all come in to become
04:46 more direct. It's probably only going to end up one way,
04:49 which is great for neutrals. Goals, goals, goals, and if you're a betting person, you
04:55 can probably count on Liverpool conceding more in transition than they've been used
04:58 to recently. It's difficult to win over the course of a season playing such heavy
05:02 metal football, but remember, this is the start of a new era for Klopp and for Liverpool,
05:07 and the control is going to have to come back over time. For now, the unpredictability
05:11 of this team is going to be hard to live with in the biggest fixtures, and that means that
05:15 a Europa League final in Dublin is a serious target.
05:19 Questions have been asked of them defensively, but in Addison, Liverpool still probably have
05:23 the best goalkeeper in the league ahead of Virgil van Dijk. That's not bad. Mohamed Salah
05:29 and Diogo Jota are proven match winners, who can change the game at the drop of a hat.
05:34 Alexander-Arnold looked back to his best drifting into midfield towards the end of last season,
05:39 convincing long-term Trent-sceptic Gareth Southgate to give him minutes for England,
05:43 and if you look at how young this Liverpool team is, what's to stop two or three of
05:47 them having a breakout season like Arsenal did last year?
05:50 Curtis Jones was arguably England's best player at the under-21 Euros. This could be
05:54 the season that he truly explodes. Most Liverpool fans have perhaps been more excited about
05:59 Harvey Elliot up until this point anyway. Nunez, Gakpo, Knott, Soboslai and McAllister
06:04 are still young too. And then there's Moises Caicedo.
06:19 Yep, generic world-class defensive midfielder. And just like Van Dijk and Alsson before him,
06:25 he could be a finishing touch to this side. He's cut from the same cloth as Klopp's
06:30 best midfielders. He's physical, he's aggressive and he's technically secure. And when Liverpool
06:34 have possession, it'll likely be Caicedo and Alexander-Arnold ahead of a back three.
06:41 It's the perfect blend of precision and aggression on and off the ball.
06:45 Really, all Klopp needs now is one more defender and perhaps a little bit of luck. This is
06:49 a squad that's been decimated by injuries and hasn't had time to settle into a rhythm.
06:54 Who knows what might actually happen if the same few players have a run playing together.
06:59 But with Liverpool a year further on in the rebuild, and Klopp having reshaped his side
07:03 from last year, we can see a little clearer where this team is heading. Liverpool started
07:08 last season not knowing who the long-term replacement was for Bobby Firmino, how to
07:12 get the best out of Trent, how to regenerate an ageing midfield, and who was going to step
07:16 up in Sadio Mane's absence. Well, Klopp's answered all of those questions.
07:21 This is a Liverpool team who shape up with a similar box midfield to City, but their
07:25 ideals couldn't be more opposed. They're going to attack, they're going to be direct,
07:29 they're going to try and smother teams, and this is a manager and a squad capable of putting
07:34 the cat among the pigeons and taking the game to big teams. They could well decide the title,
07:39 even if they don't have the lungs to be the ones lifting the trophy in May.
07:43 Klopp's new Liverpool is a lot like Klopp's old Liverpool. This is a team that might not
07:47 be fresh and new like some of their rivals, but if history is to repeat itself, it's still
07:52 good news for fans, like chaos is what made Merseyside fall in love with Jurgen Klopp
07:56 in the first place.
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