It’s too easy and too lazy to detract from the constant progression Jurgen Klopp has brought about at Liverpool by just asking how many trophies he’s won.
Whatever happens in the final three games of the title challenge – either way, it’s going to the last day now – Liverpool have lost just one game all season and they’ve already accumulated 94 points.
They’ve hit the Champions League semi-finals in successive seasons, beaten Bayern and City over two legs in the biggest knockout tournament in football and they’ve refused to piss off from the heels of Pep Guardiola in a run-in they were expected to blow a gasket in. Or produce a bottle job.
The 3-2 win at Newcastle in their final away trip of the season puts them back on top of the table for now and Klopp deserves credit for building a team that can sustain such an assault on such a tough league to win. It doesn’t look like Liverpool are going to go away, whatever happens with Man City’s game against Leicester on Monday, but, whilst they’ve continuously improved and scaled new heights, there is one cause for concern.
On Saturday night’s The Football Spin episode, Tony Evans highlighted what he thinks is the one weakness you can pick out of Jurgen Klopp’s management.
Listen from 7:45 below.
Despite missing Bobby Firmino for the whole game at St. James’ Park and despite Mo Salah being forced off and Liverpool not just starting with Sturridge but ending the match with both him and Origi on the pitch – as well as Shaqiri – they stuck, almost to a fault, to the same formation, the same system.
And it simply doesn’t suit some of the players that Klopp has at his disposal.
“If I have any criticisms of Klopp, he’s a bit of a template manager,” Evans explained.
“He sets up his team one way and he likes to keep it the same way, he likes to play the 4-3-3. And sometimes when the personnel don’t suit that, he tries to shoehorn them in.
“We see it with other managers, Sarri is far worse at Chelsea, but it’s one of those things where I think with a little bit of tactical flexibility, he might save years on his life because he probably wouldn’t give himself such a high heart rate towards the end of games when they have to go chasing them to get something out of them.”
Get the full episode of The Football Spin here or on any good podcast app.
