Topic: The Klopp Template

[Fromola]

It's the old resting with the ball adage isn't it. How many games have we been comfortably winning and able to calmly pass the ball about amongst ourselves and patiently wait for openings compared to Arsenal/City? It's something we did very well in our title winning season - score early, decisive goals in the knowledge that we rarely conceded, and just control the remainder of games without having to over-exert yourselves.

I do still think our conditioning doesn't seem right though, in addition to that. Our ability to keep players fit has been horrible for a while.

I've said it for much of the season that we waste far too much energy on games that should be more comfortable. City rarely wear themselves out in a season, but they also rarely concede possession and they aren't going 1-0 down every week. When every game is a slog it becomes exhausting. It doesn't matter if we're playing Luton at home or a tough away game - it's going to be a real grind.

I mentioned earlier that we won 21 games to nil in 21/22. Going to the wire in all 4 comps did catch up with us physically in May (two cup finals to pens as well) but we've blown ourselves out earlier. In that season we won plenty of games comfortably without having to go flat out.

The medical department and conditioning team needs improvement/overhauling though. The injury list for two seasons has been unacceptable. Then you add in players getting re-injured with the same injury and/or taking weeks/months to not look completely off the pace when they do come back.

[Redley]

I've said it for much of the season that we waste far too much energy on games that should be more comfortable. City rarely wear themselves out in a season, but they also rarely concede possession and they aren't going 1-0 down every week. When every game is a slog it becomes exhausting.

I mentioned earlier that we won 21 games to nil in 21/22. Going to the wire in all 4 comps did catch up with us physically in May (two cup finals to pens as well) but we've blown ourselves out earlier. In that season we won plenty of games comfortably without having to go flat out.

The medical department and conditioning team needs improvement/overhauling though. The injury list for two seasons has been unacceptable. Then you add in players getting re-injured with the same injury and/or taking weeks/months to not look completely off the pace when they do come back.

At a guess they're probably not actually far off us in terms of having to come from behind. Plenty of games in the league they've had to, Arsenal are the ones who have managed to avoid too much of that.

[Fromola]

At a guess they're probably not actually far off us in terms of having to come from behind. Plenty of games in the league they've had to, Arsenal are the ones who have managed to avoid too much of that.

More than I thought tbf.

They have only gone behind in 3 home games though domestically and two of them they didn't win. They came back to beat United last month.

They still win a lot of home games comfortably.

[LiamG]

I think we need a new template

[jepovic]

We need a leader in the midfield. When we get stuck, there's nobody taking charge and making sure the players take care of the press and move off the ball.
Yesterday was the first time that I felt like we missed Henderson. Not as a player, but as a leader on the pitch.
It's not that we lack hard working CMs, but players like Mac and Endo arent leading the team. They're more like Gini in that regard.

[markiv]

We need a leader in the midfield. When we get stuck, there's nobody taking charge and making sure the players take care of the press and move off the ball.
Yesterday was the first time that I felt like we missed Henderson. Not as a player, but as a leader on the pitch.
It's not that we lack hard working CMs, but players like Mac and Endo arent leading the team. They're more like Gini in that regard.

Sorry but don't agree with this. We have had a lot of similar or worse games with Hendo as a captain and been on worse runs where we just couldn't win or look like scoring. We are primarily missing 2 key elements in this team in comparison to the 2019/2020 team - 1) an elite DM (peak Fabinho) - Endo has been a lot better than most people expected but he's some way off peak Fab 2) Elite forwards - mainly the movement and finishing of peak Mane & Salah.

In terms of the back 5, yes, some of our defennders have aged a bit but I don't think the drop-off is massive. In midfield, we have improved 1 position through Mac, but the other 2 are downgrades, but we have young players who could potentially go up a level or 2. And in attack, we are massively behind the 2019/20 team and I really think we need to get 1 elite forward (Mo's replacement).

In terms of our template, we need to get a lot better at keeping the ball under pressure. We have never been great at it but in the past, we used to transition well and Bobby, Trent and Robbbo used to help massively with this. But I also think teams have gotten much better at pressing now compared to 4-5 years back and we seem to struggle when any team presses us. This is one of the reasons why we start so many games on the back foot and concede early. We are really missing a Bobby lite, who can play in between the lines, turn and have that great close control to take out a couple of players when pressed. The only player in the squad who can do this to a lesser degree is Mac but unfortunately he plays a but deeper very often and it's him and Trent who plays those vertical passes in between the lines.

[Fromola]

A big problem is we just aren't set up to be solid. First and foremost title winning teams need to be difficult to score against - that's just rule 1 of a successful team. Our title winning team was rock solid defensively for most of that season.

We all decry those two United away games - and missed chances. We did score 3 goals in the cup and 2 goals the other week. Like 13/14 you can't keep relying on needing 3s and 4s to win games and keep doing that. We pushed 100 points in successive seasons - those teams were extremely solid. We've lost that bit by bit since.

Problem is, when the goals dry up but you still keep conceding ridiculous goals then lo and behold you stop winning games. If you're solid you can at least nick the 1-0s.

[Pistolero]

Good luck to a manager coming in who - by all accounts - would not only want to replicate Klopp's core press/counter-press philosophy, but intensify it......Jurgen got his players to run through brick walls for the club...half of them now couldn't manage a plasterboard partition....