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....

[LiamG]

Will this thread be renamed the Slot template?

[LiamG]

Anyone care to explain why this klopp template concedes so much?

[ChaChaMooMoo]

Anyone care to explain why this klopp template concedes so much?

Defence and Midfield are already on vacation mode

[lionel_messias]

Anyone care to explain why this klopp template concedes so much?

Am sure that has been answered.

Look at Klopp phase one:

Fabinho,
Gini,
Henderson

Running machines and Fab was inspector gadget, snuffing out machine.

Plus Robertson was 4-5 years younger, and many thousands of miles lighter in the legs and up top:

Mane
Firmino
Peak Salah.

Pressing machines.

[Stan.]

I love Klopp’s style and system but I honestly don’t think this squad can do what he wants them to do or at least sustain it over 90 minutes.  The fitness, stamina and performance levels required to make it work are just beyond us and have been really since 21/22.  That’s not to say the squad is poor, it’s arguably up there with his best on paper, but in terms of the intensity, the high press, the high defensive line…we just can’t make it work consistently enough.  It’s a high-risk-high-reward type of football but everything has to click into place for it to work and that just hasn’t happened for a while now. Maybe the players who could do it, aren’t at that level anymore and maybe it just doesn’t suit the newer ones.  Ultimately I was and continue to be devastated that Klopp is going, but if there’s one silver lining maybe a change in style/system is exactly what we need.

[redk84]

Will this thread be renamed the Slot template?

slot machine

[Asam]

I love Klopp’s style and system but I honestly don’t think this squad can do what he wants them to do or at least sustain it over 90 minutes.  The fitness, stamina and performance levels required to make it work are just beyond us and have been really since 21/22.  That’s not to say the squad is poor, it’s arguably up there with his best on paper, but in terms of the intensity, the high press, the high defensive line…we just can’t make it work consistently enough.  It’s a high-risk-high-reward type of football but everything has to click into place for it to work and that just hasn’t happened for a while now. Maybe the players who could do it, aren’t at that level anymore and maybe it just doesn’t suit the newer ones.  Ultimately I was and continue to be devastated that Klopp is going, but if there’s one silver lining maybe a change in style/system is exactly what we need.

Slot will bring his own ideas, IMO the recruitment has lost it’s way, we’ve lost the off the ball pressure and also the killer instinct

What I would like to see is much more focus on athletic players and real searing pace out wide, I think slot is a very good fit for this, it’s now up to the recruitment team to fix the mess we have;

- Concede fewer goals
- Improve our efficiency in front of goal
- Stretch teams more out wide
- Dominate teams out of possession

we have the basis of a very good side with highly promising young players coming through but the key task is to secure the core of the Slot rebuild:

I would like to see:

- A quick powerful, centre back  (Esteve is a good option)
- A dominant central midfielder (Baleba or Gomes)
- A wide forward who can really stretch teams (Bakayoko or Williams)
- A clinical centre forward (Sesko)

Hopefully the youngsters like Bradley, Bajectic, Gordon, Doak, Clark, Danns,
Nyoni, Nallo, Scanlon, McConnell are able to contribute minutes and we can only bring in absolute top quality

what i don’t want to see is good technical players that are slow or lack dynamism coming into the squad

[HeartAndSoul]

what i don’t want to see is good technical players that are slow or lack dynamism coming into the squad

I’m pretty sure Edwards and his team will know this already. It’s an area where we’ve needed to rectify this issue since last summer but didn’t deal with it at all. Bar Szobo who was a right winger/ attacking midfielder, the rest of our signings as good as they’ve been (Macca and Endo) didn’t really solve our issue of players who can cover the ground and stop counter attacks. Like you said I too am hoping for 3 starting level players at the bare minimum. A pacy winger, a pacy centre back and an athletic midfielder 

[neil4ad]

This has likely been discussed before, but with the number of games players are being asked to play both in the normal season and in between (Euros, Club World Cup, etc.), is it at all possible that the (admittedly thrilling) front footed high press football that Kiopp has brought might not be the best system due to player fatigue? The successful team for a while has been Man City which plays to my eye a slower-paced game. Maybe the issue isn't the medical department or conditioning team, but the difficulty players have over a season in this system when there are just 72 hours in between games.

[Historical Fool]

This has likely been discussed before, but with the number of games players are being asked to play both in the normal season and in between (Euros, Club World Cup, etc.), is it at all possible that the (admittedly thrilling) front footed high press football that Kiopp has brought might not be the best system due to player fatigue? The successful team for a while has been Man City which plays to my eye a slower-paced game. Maybe the issue isn't the medical department or conditioning team, but the difficulty players have over a season in this system when there are just 72 hours in between games.

And it’s been part of why for me Klopp himself had attempted to transition to a more controlled style of play - Thiago, inverting Trent, the signing of Nunez, they’re all indicative of a shift towards a higher possession and less ‘blood-and-thunder’ style of football …

[spider-neil]

Anyone care to explain why this klopp template concedes so much?

Mane, Firmino, and Salah were masters of preventing the opposition from easily playing out from the back.
Our midfield was primarily tasked with winning back the ball and protecting the defence.
Henderson, Gini, Milner, and Fabinho were physical monsters.
Gini was quality at retaining possession and blocking off passing lanes.
Fabinho was a world class DM.

All of that and the is 'before' the ball even gets through to a world-class defender in VVD at his peak and a world-class keeper in Allison.
Most of the personnel for that template is no longer at the club and new personnel are either unable or unwilling to do what the previous iteration took pride in doing.

[Suareznumber7]

And it’s been part of why for me Klopp himself had attempted to transition to a more controlled style of play - Thiago, inverting Trent, the signing of Nunez, they’re all indicative of a shift towards a higher possession and less ‘blood-and-thunder’ style of football …

Have we though?  We still don't seem to control the play very well and usually struggle to play out when we are pressed.  I don't know what the stats say but it seems to me like we still play fairly direct with a good number of long balls.  And then we always seem to be pretty wide open on losses of possession and have been gifting opponents good chances every game.  The stats may very well tell me that I'm completely wrong but it doesn't seem like we try to control games much at all. 

[Historical Fool]

Have we though?  We still don't seem to control the play very well and usually struggle to play out when we are pressed.  I don't know what the stats say but it seems to me like we still play fairly direct with a good number of long balls.  And then we always seem to be pretty wide open on losses of possession and have been gifting opponents good chances every game.  The stats may very well tell me that I'm completely wrong but it doesn't seem like we try to control games much at all.

I think we tried. The plan was in the works the season when Pep’s book was released - because why else would Klopp approve the release of a tell-all tactical manual unless the intention was to shift away from it. But it required a bedding in period and so over time, the team reverted to the earlier directness which they’re familiar with in a bid to stem losses and get results. Over time the coaching took hold and half a season later, LFC embarked upon a strange hybrid with an inverted Trent, more direct than City but more control than prior, system that resulted in title winning form the second half of the season. That form led some to predict with certainty that we would be in a title challenge this season, which ultimately manifested.

[SerbianScouser]

The stats may very well tell me that I'm completely wrong but it doesn't seem like we try to control games much at all. 

You are very much wrong. We average 61.1% possession which is very impressive in terms of ball domination in games. (Arsenal for example have 57.9% which is a surprise in comparison). The reason it doesn't feel like we control much to you is because the chances we concede are usually big ones - it's been like that for a while now I'd say.

[Eeyore]

For me, we are a work in progress. We are currently caught between two stools. We are transitioning away from being a pure counter-pressing team and into a more possession-based team. The missing piece is the dominant press-resistant midfield.

The issue is that we have failed to recruit the physical athletic midfield monsters that are needed to complete the template. We have put in massive bids for physical midfield players but have ended up with the exact antithesis of that in Endo and Macca.

[KC7]

I think we need a new template

The template works. The problem is he has let it slip away over the past two years.

We have gone from having a high energy (and as a result high pressing) team to one that isn't.

When once we were hard to get at (2018 to 2022, the exception being six weeks in 2021 when we emptied our midfield to have Fabinho and Hendo play as CBs), we have been very easily got at. Either side of those four years teams didn't have to do a great deal to get to the danger area. Man U have been toothless all season, but we had the welcome mat out for them and shipped six in two games. One looped ball over the top by Casemiro into space with no DM in sight, allowed their atrocious, poorly coached attack a free run in on goal from which they went ahead. When we were good we didn't hand out gifts like these.

First issue was allowing the midfield get old and slow, the press declined. Hendo needed replacing in Summer '22 (when Jurgen reeled off that list of 8 "midfielders" during the press conference in responding to concerns). Then when he admitted he got it wrong (although how much of that was down to financial restrictions from the owners like the January '21 window?) after a poor start and then signed Melo, we proceeded to watch opponents run through our midfield all season with no defensive barrier, culminating with Southampton whose midfielders had a field day when they put four past us. The only thing missing from Fabinho that season was him holding up a placard which read "after you".

We then made a decent attempt to rectify matters last summer with the midfield rebuild, but its unfinished without an athletic 6. And even if we had brought in a monster at 6, it still takes a while for a whole new midfield set up to bed in. Jurgen hasn't been happy with the midfield all sesson, commenting they "have to stay close together" to protect the slower 6 (whether that's Endo or moving Mac back there), which is not a Klopp set up at all. It's the opposite of high energy. Had he stayed Jurgen would have finished the midfield rebuild this summer, and we'd have seen a return to the 2018 to 2022 era of being much more energetic and intense. Just a shame that he's going so we won't see him do that.

The forwards too have been an issue (although much less so). Gakpo at Newscastle may have given the laziest performance of any player this season. They were camped in our half as there was no-one pressing from the front, with their defenders freely allowed to walk the ball up to and past midfield. When he went off (and Endo) our intensity ramped up, and with 10 players we rescued it.

[KC7]

For me, we are a work in progress. We are currently caught between two stools. We are transitioning away from being a pure counter-pressing team and into a more possession-based team. The missing piece is the dominant press-resistant midfield.

The issue is that we have failed to recruit the physical athletic midfield monsters that are needed to complete the template. We have put in massive bids for physical midfield players but have ended up with the exact antithesis of that in Endo and Macca.

Agree with that. I would say though that Mac is fine as an 8. His defensive work was good there this season. As the season has gone on he has suffered with the extra workload, and he has looked knackered after games. This is where a monster at 6 comes in, someone athletic who allows the 8s to focus more on their game and not have to stay close and protect him. Mac and the other 8s having to come right back into the 6 position as the 6 isn't mobile enough, that's been a killer for us. An elite team shouldn't have a player (or position) that needs protection.

[Eeyore]

Agree with that. I would say though that Mac is fine as an 8. His defensive work was good there this season. As the season has gone on he has suffered with the extra workload, and he has looked knackered after games. This is where a monster at 6 comes in, someone athletic who allows the 8s to focus more on their game and not have to stay close and protect him. Mac and the other 8s having to come right back into the 6 position as the 6 isn't mobile enough, that's been a killer for us. An elite team shouldn't have a player (or position) that needs protection.

Yeah for me we were at our best when we had Macca as the six and Jones and Szobo as the 8's. We had legs around Macca and were both press-resistant and harder to play through. The issue for me was that neither Jones nor Szobozslai regained their form after getting injured and we overplayed Macca as a consequence.