Topic: The Klopp Template

[PaleBlueDot]

Not many times I look at us and think Klopp has got it all wrong on the pitch.

Let's enjoy his last 6 games and make a party of it.

[AmanShah21]

Overplaying and Overthinking everything at the moment. We are so soow and so bad at getting the ball out from the back. I get that we want to keep possession but we are basically running down the clock every game when it takes us so many passes to get out of our own half and even then half the time they eventually go long. Most teams are targeting this very successfully at the moment. We need to be getting out far quicker if we want to create more. For the amount of possession we have, its annoying how much of it is spent getting out and how many errors doing that has cost us in the last 5-6 games. If we are struggling with that, we need to change it. When Kelleher was going long, we were doing just fine. Lets go back to that until teams start allowing us the space to play out.

[RF]

Gone stale last few weeks 🙁

[crewlove]

I wouldn't mind if the tactic was to at least stay in the game and then up the ante last 20 minutes or whatever, but we were just out of ideas.

Honestly the worst thing is that we didn't even try to go all in. Penalty and it was all we could do.

Apart from the system, you can deal with man marking with dribbling or/and pace. But today even if we managed to dribble our way through there wasn't any pace or clue what to do next.

Just I don't know how we got here.

[Draex]

In our peak, our players were younger, stronger and had more energy. Also, they could press really well.
This side has evolved, but a lot of players look like Gini looked towards the end of his time. Out of energy, goosed by the age of 30.

Mac, Jones and Szobo have an average age of 24.

Robbo had the most energy of the team.

We just look mentally done, they've checked out.

[Caps4444]

It feels like the 22/23 season, but in a more condensed play over 10 games at the back end of this season.
Going to be super difficult to turn this around for the remaining 6 games.
At this point we need to make sure of 4th place first of all.
We’ve witnessed January / February 21 when we lost a number on the spin.

[Caps4444]

Mac, Jones and Szobo have an average age of 24.

Robbo had the most energy of the team.

We just look mentally done, they've checked out.

If we don’t win on Sunday, I can see the team fully checking out.

[ScubaSteve]

If we don’t win on Sunday, I can see the team fully checking out.

Yeah, I got laughed at on one of the pages when I said after the palace game that we’re gonna be fighting to keep hold of a CL place

[DelTrotter]

Yeah, I got laughed at on one of the pages when I said after the palace game that we’re gonna be fighting to keep hold of a CL place

Rightly so to be fair, we could probably lose every game and still get in.

[Kuytinho]

Never disagreed with Klopp's tactics more than today. Completely baffled by the second half approach. Feel like I must be missing something. How, after last week, could Klopp and Lijnders' plan be to end the game trying to build up through Gomez in central midfield? We couldn't play through them for 180 minutes and seemingly never even considered a plan B.

[Stockholm Syndrome]

Rightly so to be fair, we could probably lose every game and still get in.

Well some people think we will lose every game, or it's a distinct possibility at least.

[redk84]

Cmon
In all these games in our "bad run" we have created enough to score and win ....we're not suddenly shit.

Confidence is low and its making things look worse. But this team has a lot of character even if it's in a funk at the worst time of the season.  There's no lack of trying out there and I don't see players "checking out", just looking for a spark and unfortunately right now it's not there.

[Stockholm Syndrome]

Cmon
In all these games in our "bad run" we have created enough to score and win ....we're not suddenly shit.

Confidence is low and its making things look worse. But this team has a lot of character even if it's in a funk at the worst time of the season.  There's no lack of trying out there and I don't see players "checking out", just looking for a spark and unfortunately right now it's not there.

People think if we lose Sunday (which they think we probably will) the team will check out and not win again

[Legs]

People think if we lose Sunday (which they think we probably will) the team will check out and not win again

Not going to happen is it nailed on to finish top 3.

Thank the lord for Van Djik winner at Wembley at least we have a trophy and that is a plus for me even if people scoff at it.

[Clint Eastwood]

There is something weird about us when we hit a run of bad form. The wheels seem to come off pretty quickly and it never ends up being just a bit of a wobble. Maybe it's physicial and mental exhaustion, and our system's reliance on energy. We've gone back to looking like how we did last year.

[Cruiser]

We're terrible when we pass the ball across the back. It's ike we've run out of ideas and resosrt to 80's style long ball football.

[Crosby Nick]

People think if we lose Sunday (which they think we probably will) the team will check out and not win again

Why do you keep saying “people say”. Do you think we’ll lose them all?

[Stockholm Syndrome]

Why do you keep saying “people say”. Do you think we’ll lose them all?

No I don't. But a fair few of our fans do, and I think that's a sad indictment of our fanbase

[rawcusk8]

Genuinely believe if he wasn’t already leaving there would be some asking for his head.. Almost get the Arsene Wenger hanging around for too long vibes right now. A real shame to be honest and this is from Rawk, shudder to think what’s on the other shitty platforms right now

[Clint Eastwood]

Genuinely believe if he wasn’t already leaving there would be some asking for his head.. Almost get the Arsene Wenger hanging around for too long vibes right now. A real shame to be honest and this is from Rawk, shudder to think what’s on the other shitty platforms right now

I think if he wasn't leaving there would be an acceptance that this was supposed to be a transition season and we were punching higher than our weight. However, looking back at the last couple of weeks, it's hard to not think about what Klopp said when he announced his departure - that he was getting burnt out and doesn't have the energy for it more. I think when you consider everything with that added context his decision becomes more understandable. Another disappointing end to a season where you have to 'go again' - it's exhausting for fans, so imagine how the manager must feel.

[Crosby Nick]

Genuinely believe if he wasn’t already leaving there would be some asking for his head.. Almost get the Arsene Wenger hanging around for too long vibes right now. A real shame to be honest and this is from Rawk, shudder to think what’s on the other shitty platforms right now

It’s fucking madness. It’s been two weeks of bad results. People are now going back to say things have been poor all season. So knee jerk it’s untrue. We’re all upset with how it looks like the season will end but the disrespect he’s getting is really doing my head in.

[Knight]

Said this in the HT thread and oh my, the second half was even more brutal.

Alisson made 94 passes (highest in the team) is all you need to know. Klopp is many things but beating a press with passing is not one of his.

Thoroughly outplayed and outcoached by Atalanta.

You’re so right about this. It’s been an issue for basically all Klopp’s time. We’ve mostly coped fine and found ways around it but right now it’s really bad. It’s a systemic flaw (although it may well be the flip side of a strength)

[Ma Vie en Rouge]

It’s fucking madness. It’s been two weeks of bad results. People are now going back to say things have been poor all season. So knee jerk it’s untrue. We’re all upset with how it looks like the season will end but the disrespect he’s getting is really doing my head in.

Yep. Some unbelievably ungrateful and disloyal stuff being spouted in here tonight in particular.

Some people's immediate reaction to adversity seems to be to blame the manager who has given us years of success and want him out. Thank god he didn't foster that kind of weak mentality at the club, or we'd have never won a thing.

[LiamG]

The template isn't working because we look absolutely shot! Chasing the quad has again come back to haunt us

[kloppismydad]

The template isn't working because we look absolutely shot! Chasing the quad has again come back to haunt us

Tend to agree.

We always looked much better closing out a season when we didn't give a shit about the Carabao and the FA cups.

Any stats whiz can back this up?

[killer-heels]

The template isn't working because we look absolutely shot! Chasing the quad has again come back to haunt us

Dont want to make this a specific Klopp thing but playing strong teams in dead rubber Europa matches doesnt help.

[MD1990]

our best performances was with bradley playing wide
playing with no width with trent does not really work

[Knight]

The template isn't working because we look absolutely shot! Chasing the quad has again come back to haunt us

Not sure any of our players has really played that many minutes though. If they are knackered it might be an s&c issue not an overplaying issue.

[LiamG]

Tend to agree.

We always looked much better closing out a season when we didn't give a shit about the Carabao and the FA cups.

Any stats whiz can back this up?

Stats wise this is all I can find
https://x.com/simonbrundish/status/1779763041908764701?s=46&t=uDnTZJgmP4ODkXVe1mAzUQ

[Fromola]

Tend to agree.

We always looked much better closing out a season when we didn't give a shit about the Carabao and the FA cups.

Any stats whiz can back this up?

We might have chased the quad but we had much weakened teams out in 2 of the 4 Fa Cup games. And if we went out before we'd have  played Everton the weekend of the United game, so the Fa Cup hasn't been that taxing up to now.

Europa League we had heavily rotated teams over the 6 group games and the Prague tie was won in the first leg. Could and should have rested more in the second leg but we didn't get out of first gear that night.

League Cup it would have been beneficial to have had an extra few free midweeks.

We just haven't managed games well enough in the league and have to go flat out every week. It caught up with us in 13/14 and we had no other distractions then.

It's also the injuries have killed us. And it seems to take an ice age for players to get their level back when they come back from an injury.

[jepovic]

It’s fucking madness. It’s been two weeks of bad results. People are now going back to say things have been poor all season. So knee jerk it’s untrue. We’re all upset with how it looks like the season will end but the disrespect he’s getting is really doing my head in.

Yeah, and only the Atalanta games were really terrible in terms of the football played.
We had almost xG 3 against Palace. That was nothing at all like this.

[Redley]

Really not sure its the rocket science some think.

We've had a shitload of injuries and so have had to maybe overplay a number of players, who are now pretty knackered and we're trying to re-integrate some of our better players back into that....which is then going to lead to what we're seeing right now. I dare say if we had another ten games we'd end up getting back into really good form, its just horrible luck with injuries which have ended up catching up to us at the wrong time.

[DangerScouse]

Rightly so to be fair, we could probably lose every game and still get in.

Yep

[Haggis36]

Not sure any of our players has really played that many minutes though. If they are knackered it might be an s&c issue not an overplaying issue.

Yeah this is the only bit that doesn't really bear out to me - we look absolutely fucked, but most of our players have played a lot less than their counterparts at City and Arsenal for example. Both of those teams have obviously also bombed out of Europe and Arsenal obviously had a bad week, but I don't think either of them look as tired as we do right now (City were playing supremely intensely against Madrid up until about half way through extra time, for example).

Only 3 of our players have played more than 3000 minutes this season so I think we can forgive Diaz, VVD and Macca for looking tired (plus Gomez, who's only just shy of that total). But the rest leaves some pretty big question marks. The next block are Nunez and Salah, who've played about 2700-2800 minutes. Some of Arsenal's players are pushing 4000 and they have 8 on over 3000 minutes, City have 9.

I figured the new boys must be playing a lot more football than they're used to, but with 6 games to go, Macca has actually played around 200 minutes less football this season than he did last season (albeit maybe at a higher intensity?). Dom, if he plays every minute of every remaining match will have played less, and RBL play intense high pressing football last I checked. Endo has played 35% less football this season than he did last season.

I don't think any of the players bar maybe Robbo have come back from injuries particularly well, but I don't know why we look as tired as we do. Lots of comparisons to the 21/22 season, but we played a LOT more football that year. Assuming players play every minute of every available remaining game, only VVD will break the 4000 minute barrier, and Diaz would hit a maximum of around 3700 minutes - that would put him about joint 8th on minutes played from our 21/22 bunch, more or less level with Matip. 41 games worth is a lot, but it's not a stupid amount - it's basically the equivalent of a full PL season + 3 cup games. Of course this doesn't factor in internationals which don't help, but aren't a new concept.

I don't think our conditioning has looked great at all this season really, and it's a fairly legitimate argument that our style puts additional strain on the players.

[jillcwhomever]

Yeah this is the only bit that doesn't really bear out to me - we look absolutely fucked, but most of our players have played a lot less than their counterparts at City and Arsenal for example. Both of those teams have obviously also bombed out of Europe and Arsenal obviously had a bad week, but I don't think either of them look as tired as we do right now (City were playing supremely intensely against Madrid up until about half way through extra time, for example).

Only 3 of our players have played more than 3000 minutes this season so I think we can forgive Diaz, VVD and Macca for looking tired (plus Gomez, who's only just shy of that total). But the rest leaves some pretty big question marks. The next block are Nunez and Salah, who've played about 2700-2800 minutes. Some of Arsenal's players are pushing 4000 and they have 8 on over 3000 minutes, City have 9.

I figured the new boys must be playing a lot more football than they're used to, but with 6 games to go, Macca has actually played around 200 minutes less football this season than he did last season (albeit maybe at a higher intensity?). Dom, if he plays every minute of every remaining match will have played less, and RBL play intense high pressing football last I checked. Endo has played 35% less football this season than he did last season.

I don't think any of the players bar maybe Robbo have come back from injuries particularly well, but I don't know why we look as tired as we do. Lots of comparisons to the 21/22 season, but we played a LOT more football that year. Assuming players play every minute of every available remaining game, only VVD will break the 4000 minute barrier, and Diaz would hit a maximum of around 3700 minutes - that would put him about joint 8th on minutes played from our 21/22 bunch, more or less level with Matip. 41 games worth is a lot, but it's not a stupid amount - it's basically the equivalent of a full PL season + 3 cup games. Of course this doesn't factor in internationals which don't help, but aren't a new concept.

I don't think our conditioning has looked great at all this season really, and it's a fairly legitimate argument that our style puts additional strain on the players.

I find that hard to believe considering Arsenal were knocked out of the Cup early. We went quite far in both Cup competitions as well as suffered more injuries than either City or Arsenal.

[Haggis36]

I find that hard to believe considering Arsenal were knocked out of the Cup early. We went quite far in both Cup competitions as well as suffered more injuries than either City or Arsenal.

You can look at the numbers if you like. Each team's top 10 most featured players:

Saliba 3962, Gabriel 3822, Rice 3734, White 3565, Odegaard 3514, Saka 3435, Havertz 3304, Raya 3180, Martinelli 2454, Zinchenko 2031 - AVERAGE 3,300

Foden 3680, Rodri 3618, Dias 3503, Walker 3396, Ederson 3334, Haaland 3283, Akanji 3206, Alvarez 3162, Silva 3099, Gvrdiol 1849 - AVERAGE 3,213

Virgil 3532, Diaz 3148, Mcca 3069, Gomez, 2988, Nunez 2860, Salah 2743, Dom 2604, Gakpo 2594, Konate 2524, Kelleher 2400 - AVERAGE 2,846

Caveat: club football only.

[Draex]

You can look at the numbers if you like. Each team's top 10 most featured players:

Saliba 3962, Gabriel 3822, Rice 3734, White 3565, Odegaard 3514, Saka 3435, Havertz 3304, Raya 3180, Martinelli 2454, Zinchenko 2031 - AVERAGE 3,300

Foden 3680, Rodri 3618, Dias 3503, Walker 3396, Ederson 3334, Haaland 3283, Akanji 3206, Alvarez 3162, Silva 3099, Gvrdiol 1849 - AVERAGE 3,213

Virgil 3532, Diaz 3148, Mcca 3069, Gomez, 2988, Nunez 2860, Salah 2743, Dom 2604, Gakpo 2594, Konate 2524, Kelleher 2400 - AVERAGE 2,846

Caveat: club football only.

I mentioned this before, there is a huge difference in energy levels of a team who continually have to score 2 goals to win a game because they've conceeded themselves early. Having the most goals score in the 75th + minute and most points won from a losing position looks great and woohoo mentality monsters but the toll it must take out of you physically and mentally to keep going to the wall full pelt for 90mins can't be sustainable.

Cheaty and maybe Arsenal play with control and the ball, get ahead and stay ahead, then manage the game out. You expend more energy pressing and chasing goals than you do managing a game to death.

[Haggis36]

I mentioned this before, there is a huge difference in energy levels of a team who continually have to score 2 goals to win a game because they've conceeded themselves early. Having the most goals score in the 75th + minute and most points won from a losing position looks great and woohoo mentality monsters but the toll it must take out of you physically and mentally to keep going to the wall full pelt for 90mins can't be sustainable.

Cheaty and maybe Arsenal play with control and the ball, get ahead and stay ahead, then manage the game out. You expend more energy pressing and chasing goals than you do managing a game to death.

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.

[Draex]

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.

100% when we were our best and won the league and champions league we had evolved from the heavy metal gengenpressing from Klopps start here to a much more controlled and managed way of playing. I'd describe it as building up this wave after wave of sustained pressure, having a chance but then winning the ball back through a high line and counter press, starting again, moving the ball from side to side, probing and then just bang a chance and goal. We'd manage the game through control and up the intensity when we needed to, very much like controlled chaos, these days we are just chaos.

But the above was all built upon one of the best defences the league has seen, utterly dominat 1 v 1 defenders who we never seem to expose on the counter.

These days we appear to have a huge spaces inbetween our lines, we used to have Van Dijk and Matip camped on the halfway line with Fabinho roaming ahead of them gobbling up any out ball. It was glorious to watch.

Chaos isn't sustainable, see Nunez.

I'd imagine a full review is underway, the guy Klopp brought in for injury recovery is leaving etc.

[Keith Lard]

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.

Mona has had the lads on quorn. Could explain a few things 😁