Jurgen Klopp: Two years at Liverpool

"This weekend signifies the two-year mark of Jurgen Klopp’s reign over Liverpool Football Club. The former Borussia Dortmund manager has had both successes and failure during this time. For this reason, Liverpool tickets are hotter than they’ve been in years."
Published by
06th Oct 2017
Categories: Liverpool

This weekend signifies the two-year mark of Jurgen Klopp’s reign over Liverpool Football Club. The former Borussia Dortmund manager has had both successes and failures during this time. His successes include Europa League and EFL Cup finals as well as a qualification in the UEFA Champions League, placing them back in the spotlight of the highest European stage. For this reason, Liverpool FC tickets are hotter than they’ve been in years!

Jurgen Klopp is well-received by the majority of Liverpool fans due to his nature and character. However certain consistent concerns are raised as Liverpool appears to fall short of their difficult targets which place the 50-year-old German under scrutiny from time to time. In falling at the last hurdles in both their Europa League and EFL Cup campaigns, their efforts appeared squandered and Liverpool fans were left disappointed, Particularly in their defeats to Southampton in the EFL Cup semi-finals last season. Despite these fallbacks, Jurgen Klopp managed to get Liverpool to fourth place in the final standings of the Premier League last term, thus qualifying the Liverpudlian side for the UEFA Champions League.

The next opponent that Liverpool faces in their Champions League efforts is Maribor on Tuesday the 17th of October. Liverpool has still been struggling to keep clean sheets in their matches due to cracks in their defence. Over the past two years, Jurgen Klopp has spent over £150 million on the offensive side of his squad whilst only spending just over £17 million on his defence. This leaves him accountable for the easy conception of goals against Liverpool. The attention towards an offensive style of play is not the only reason why they concede though. Liverpool’s attention towards organisation has left them at fault also, with only West Ham and Crystal Palace making more errors leading to goals against them.

As January approaches, fans and pundits alike will be hoping that the Liverpool manager will be focusing his attention on their defence. Liverpool going forward is one of the most threatening teams in the Premier League, making them a very entertaining side to spectate. Players such as Mo Salah, Sadio Mané and Philippe Coutinho continue to bring the Reds results, creating chances and more importantly, converting those chances. Coutinho’s superb ability to convert from outside the box isn’t going unnoticed. His unhappiness caused tension during the summer transfer period yet he still finds himself consistently in the starting line-up and more often than not making a massive difference on-field.

Liverpool’s next Premier League fixture is against Manchester United with Manchester United tickets being available here. Manchester United and Liverpool both find difficult opponents in each other as they’ve only come away with draws in recent stand-offs. Manchester United’s striking force must be keeping Klopp awake at night though as they’ve been so effective thus far in the Premier League. However, he will be focusing all his efforts on sharing similarities with Southampton by providing the Red Devils with a constant influx of offensive play. He will only be hoping that Liverpool converts where Southampton couldn’t.

Jurgen Klopp’s improvements to the team are evident when we assess the results against the other six teams in the Premier League. It would seem that Liverpool struggles more with the so-called ‘underdogs’ than with the Titans in the League. Against the top six teams, they finish first with the highest amount of wins and draws and therefore the lowest amount of losses. Their goal difference over the past fourteen months has also significantly increased in comparison with Brendan Rodgers's last fourteen months at the club (Klopp’s scoring 91 and Rodgers’ scoring 60). For this reason, Jurgen Klopp is performing well. He simply needs to focus on his defence more and try to come out on top in the final stages of large competitions.