Originally Posted by
Steveo
Jürgen Klopp has been let down by Liverpool owners
Henry Winter, Chief Football Writer,
February 9 2021, The Times
There is no shame in losing to a team of Manchester City’s exceptional class or being outwitted by a coach of Pep Guardiola’s endless inventiveness. The only shame is in not responding. That is the challenge for Liverpool now.
The central question is whether the club’s owner, Fenway Sports Group (FSG), will respond. It is wrestling with the cost of the pandemic, and can point to investment in the magnificent training ground at Kirkby and to almost £72 million spent on Diogo Jota, Thiago Alcântara and Kostas Tsimikas in the summer.
The company is largely perceived as a good owner, partly because it is not Tom Hicks and George Gillett — fellow Americans and unpopular predecessors — nor the Glazers at Manchester United, and because John W Henry, the club’s principal owner, engages in community initiatives, speaks well and showed decisiveness when appointing Jürgen Klopp and recruiting Alisson and Virgil van Dijk.
Yet FSG is also the organisation that proposed a £77 ticket before apologising to fans who staged a mass walkout in protest in 2016, that furloughed staff last year before relenting after a supporters’ backlash, that co-drove the shameless attempted power-grab of Project Big Picture and is now involved in money-spinning plans for a European Super League.
For all the occasional romantic narrative spun around Henry, he is a businessman, looking for a fistful of dollars and more. Liverpool is not a hobby, a passion for Henry; he is prospecting in a Kop Klondike. Do the maths. Money means more. At a time when Liverpool’s squad required proper investment, Henry paused. All the indications are that the summer will be another period of retrenchment, of the seeds of success left unsown, and the fields of Anfield Road lying fallow.
For the first time, Henry has let Klopp down, forcing him to raid the middle ranks of the Sky Bet Championship and the bottom of the Bundesliga for central-defensive reinforcements, corner-shop purchasing by a household name. FSG has gone all cheap on Klopp. For an owner who prides himself on his knowledge of the club’s history, Henry should know that Liverpool traditionally strengthened when ahead.
Those of us lucky to be heading into Anfield on Sunday for Liverpool’s showdown with City, which became a meltdown, saw Sir Kenny Dalglish also arriving, striding in, always there, always supporting the team from the smart seats, just as he delivered on the pitch for them. Dalglish first arrived at Anfield in 1977, following Kevin Keegan, who was moving on to Hamburg. Henry and his acolytes will not need reminding that Liverpool won the European Cup in 1977 with Keegan in attack, then retained the trophy with Dalglish scoring the decisive goal. Momentum maintained. Always strengthen.
Of the Liverpool team who lost the 2018 Champions League final in Kiev, seven started against City: Trent Alexander-Arnold, Andrew Robertson, Jordan Henderson, Georginio Wijnaldum, Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mané, while nine from the triumphant 2019 team in Madrid started at Anfield (adding Alisson and Fabinho). Even dynasties need refreshing. Even a pool of talent needs topping up.
Liverpool look tired, in need of rejuvenating. Not since the start of the 1963-64 season have they succumbed in three successive games at Anfield, to Nottingham Forest, Blackpool and West Ham United. They still finished champions, under Bill Shankly, that season but that is not going to happen this year. City are too good. Liverpool too drained.
They need substantial investment in the squad by FSG in the summer, a clearout too, perhaps freeing up some funds. Naby Keita, sadly, is too injury-prone while Divock Origi and Xherdan Shaqiri are good but not elite, although Liverpool fans will offer them thanks for the memories. Wijnaldum’s contract impasse seems symptomatic of Liverpool’s predicament: a principal owner looking at the bottom line when he should be focusing on giving Klopp the resources to be top of the table again.
If money matters most to Henry, he will surely understand the price of not qualifying for the Champions League, of the embarrassment for him among his Super League plotters. Worryingly for the majority who care about the sporting integrity of the game, Liverpool failing to dash down the Premier League platform and reboard the Champions League gravy train may simply encourage FSG to become further in cahoots with the European greed club.
Henry needs to respond the right way: speculate to accumulate. Back Klopp. In the acrimonious aftermath of Liverpool’s second-half collapse against an outstanding City, BBC Radio 5 Live’s 606 phone-in with Chris Sutton and Robbie Savage heard from some callers who had clearly divested themselves of all common sense. Klopp out, a couple ventured. Radio going gaga. Fortunately, Sutton and Savage put them in their place. Klopp represents Liverpool’s rescue plan.
He will respond to the adversity. It is in his nature. He will be furious about Liverpool’s supine defence of their league crown, even if amid the bonfire of the sanities on Sunday evening it was forgotten that there have been far worse title defences, going back to Blackburn Rovers, finishing 7th in 1995-96, Chelsea 10th in 2015-16 and Leicester City ending up 12th a season later.
Klopp, such an intelligent man, will scrutinise and analyse himself and others. He needs to be less twitchy in interviews and more bold with his substitutions. He needs to hold his nerve, keep showing the courage that defined his 2019 and 2020 teams. Removing Curtis Jones, who was playing well against City, was bizarre, running against Klopp’s identity.
As well as reinvigorating his squad, Klopp should also consider continuing to refresh his coaching staff, bringing in a new voice for players to respond to. Sir Alex Ferguson was the master of recruiting players to challenge the squad and coaches to challenge the status quo.
Some new faces will help but anybody with any familiarity with some of the characters in Klopp’s dressing room will know they will still respond. Experienced campaigners and driven individuals such as Henderson, Robertson and Mané will respond. At 35, James Milner’s legs are going, but not his hunger. Alisson is too conscientious a professional not to refocus and immerse himself in training to eradicate the errors of distribution that scarred the second half on Sunday.
A supreme talent like Alexander-Arnold, only 22, will respond, working on his defensive attributes to complement his phenomenal attacking strengths. A fearless youngster such as Jones, only 20, will respond. Absent friends like Van Dijk and Joe Gomez will return at some point this year, and respond, providing the pacey cover that allows Robertson and Alexander-Arnold to push up more confidently. Jota will return and respond.
Liverpool will be back and they will respond, but they need backing from FSG.
When Liverpool, Everton, Manchester United and Manchester City joined forces at the weekend to demand an end to the online abuse of players, they also referred to the criticism that referees endure, which needed condemning and addressing. The death threats sent to the referee Mike Dean and his family after his decision to dismiss West Ham United’s Tomas Soucek against Fulham, a red card overturned on appeal yesterday, sadly highlighted again the lowlifes lurking online, inevitably intensifying with fans at present barred from airing their views inside grounds. Dean is an honest, hard-working official who loves the game and makes the occasional mistake, yet some people criminally cross the line in calling him to task and the tech giants, as well as the police, have to devote the requisite resources to bringing the perpetrators to account.
If the online platforms do not accept their responsibility and make those posting more visible then the government has to step in. The game also has a responsibility to Dean, including being more mindful of comments by managers or media that could fan the flames of enmity online.
True Red ^^^^^^
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