So Far, Sehr Gut

We’re only six matches into Jurgen Klopp’s first full season in charge at Anfield and already there’s a buzz, a murmur, a fever, an expectation around the place.  We’ve been here before, of course.  For those of us who were there at start of Paisley’s reign it’s easy to forget there is a whole generation of Liverpool fans who have only known cup success, albeit as many trophies as Arsenal since 1990.

Klopp arrived at Liverpool on a metaphorical donkey with many keen to hand him their bread and fish in the hope he could work a miracle.  After the initial euphoria of wins at Chelsea and Man City came the pathetic Sunday lunchtime fare served up at Vicarage Road.  That game was a huge slap in the face of reality as we all struggled to resign ourselves to the fact this squad just wasn’t good enough.  We were in tenth place when he joined and only managed to move up two places by the end of the season.  There were two cup finals to look back on, but still no silverware.  After forty-five minutes in Basel, Liverpool were 1-0 up and well in control against Sevilla.  Twenty-five minutes later and the dream was over. 

At the end of the season there was great expectation the new campaign would bring more hope.  Personally I was a little disappointed with the transfer window.  I had doubts about Mane and Wijnaldum and wasn’t convinced we’d moved enough players on.  It has taken just a few games for those fears to be completely allayed.  .

The transformation has been huge.  Already we’re playing some of the most exciting football this side of Beardsley, Barnes and Aldridge. 

The mention of those three is what has prompted me to write this.  I have wonderful memories of the Dalglish’s 86-91 team with the years between 87-89 seeing us play some of the best football I’ve ever seen.  Paisley’s late 70’s side was the most efficient and fully deserved the title “the red machine”.  Effective, efficient and almost impossible to stop.  But that late 80’s side played the more exciting football, in my opinion.  Not better or worse, just different.

Watching some of those matches again you can be forgiven for forgetting what a complete force they were in attack.  Not a wave, more a tsunami.  There were players attacking from everywhere.  Because of the attacking instincts of the midfield Rush and Aldridge played a different role.  Unlike every other striker around then they would drop off and create space for Houghton, Whelan and McMahon to burst into.  Added to that there was Barnes and Beardsley who also attacked from deep.

Watching Liverpool so far this season reminds me of this team.  We attack from all areas.  Henderson, Wijnaldum and Coutinho along with Lallana, Firmino, Sturridge and Mane.  Add to that Clyne and Milner attacking down the flanks and you get the feeling opposition teams must struggle to work out where the next attack is coming from.  Joel Matip also appears to want to bomb forward in a way Alan Hansen used to.  Chelsea discovered how all-consuming this is and how difficult it is to repel. 

They hunt in packs, they press with ferocious authority and they pass the ball with an alacrity which makes you wish the ability to pause live football was not just for those watching tv. 

Henderson’s wonder strike at Stamford Bridge has also added a further facet.  If you defend deep in the hope of smothering the attacks then this will leave space for someone like Henderson or Coutinho to fire one from long range.

To make up for the lack of big signings Jurgen Klopp has improved a number of players to give us the effect of new introductions.  Milner has been moved to left-back to solve the problem of the madness that is Alberto Moreno.  He has been immense this season.  Always a hard worker, Milner can cross a ball as well as anyone and his ability to understand midfield play has enabled him to support that part of the play with more intelligence than most full-backs.  Clyne on the other flank also offers a great attacking threat which is currently more potent than any other full-back in the country.  The difference between him and Kyle Walker is his willingness to take players on.  This was fully evident to all except the England manager in the summer, it seems.  The current national boss would do well to consider both Liverpool full-backs for his qualification campaign too.

Time could well serve to consider Klopp’s conversion of Milner into a left-back as incisive and forward thinking as Paisley’s conversion of Ray Kennedy from attack to midfield.  Kennedy became one of the most revered players of his generation throughout Europe.  Whether Milner will reach those heights remains to be seen but his value to this team already this season is almost impossible to calculate.

Mane has really impressed me.  Always busy, quick feet and constantly scurrying in a manner Suarez used to.  He doesn’t have the skill and nous of the Uruguayan but this team seems more suited to his style than where he moved from.  The same can be said for Wijnaldum.  He seemed lost at Newcastle and lacking the stomach for the fight, but under Klopp he now has a purpose, a role and is flourishing under it.

Another improvement Klopp has brought is to bring competition for the goalkeeping position.  He bought Loris Karius from his old club, Mainz, but he unfortunately picked up an injury during pre-season.  We were then back to Mignolet for the start of the season.  He can be categorised as ‘decent’ rather than ‘outstanding’.  More a shot-stopper than a modern day keeper and although we’ve had shot stoppers before such as Clemence, Grobbelaar and Reina, Mignolet just doesn’t command his area in the way those three did.  We have also missed Reina’s ability to put us on the attack as soon as he picked up the ball.  But Mignolet now knows he has to fight for his place and that can only be healthy for the team.  The same for Emre Can who increasingly looks as if he could be as important to the team as a Gerrard, a Molby or a Souness.  But injury has seen him have to fight for his way back in and with standards already being set incoming players soon know what level of play is expected of them.

Jordan Henderson is another player who is really flourishing under Klopp.  Now club captain his role in the middle of the park seems to really suit him.  His passing is improving and he isn’t afraid to have a shot, as Chelsea found out, and he also seems to be benefiting from the players around him.  Watching him this season I can’t help but still feel a tinge of regret that Steven Gerrard wasn’t a few years younger.  He’d love playing in this team and he’d definitely love playing under this manager.  But there you are.

It is early days but the performance against Hull City this weekend certainly soothed some people’s fears we can often perform well against the big clubs but come unstuck against sides we really should be putting away with ease.  There’s an enjoyment in the football the players are exhibiting and they seem to have completely have bought into it, in a way mirrored at Man City.

I thought Klopp’s reaction to the Hull game was very poignant.  He could be seen on eighty minutes clearly reminding the players there were ten minutes still to go and he was visibly frustrated the performance had dropped.  He confirmed his frustration after the match and I was taken by the intensity and attention to detail from our boss.

If Man City continue in their current form, along with one or two other clubs, then goal difference could well be a factor come May.  Far better to go into the final game of the season knowing a win could secure the title rather than find three points is not enough as we’d need to win by seven or eight goals to stand a chance.

I realise Liverpool fans won’t want Ferguson’s name mentioned in an article such as this, but it was something he was intently aware of during United’s title years, as he would often lambast the players during the season to keep going and try and get that extra goal.  In 2012 they lost out on goal difference to City by eight goals.  Surely they could’ve found an extra eight goals from their thirty-eight matches?

You get the impression Klopp will never let his players rest on their laurels.  That is one of the major factors which makes him a perfect fit for this club.  It has all the hallmarks of the belief system so strongly instilled in the club by Shankly, Paisley, Fagan, Moran, Evans and Dalglish.

For now, things feel good. In a way similar to the heady days of 2013-14 we now look forward to every match in the belief of being entertained in a way we all feel football should do.  Clearly nothing has been achieved yet and we are barely into the new season but what is sport if you cannot dream?

What is Going on Out There?

This season has been different right from kick-off.  Up to the halfway point there is no runaway leader and the previous big four are now spread throughout the table.  Chelsea’s awful season has opened up opportunities for other clubs, but also Leicester City’s emergence has thrown the form book out the window.  Right from the early part of the season Crystal Palace and West Ham have occupied top seven places, and Watford’s recent run has seen them move into that once longed for esteemed group.

The big clubs have struggled to put consistent runs together as what was thought just a strange start to a season has become a constant source of frustration for those who believed they knew the script.  For some this is a welcome alternative to believing you could predict the top four or top six before a ball has been kicked.  For others, the trend of each team beating each other has created the sense that despite losing a few matches, a club can still climb several places with a few wins.  My own club, Liverpool are a case in point.  Despite taking just one point from games against Newcastle, West Brom and Watford, we are only five points off a top four place.

So what is it about this season that has made it so close?

I believe there are several important factors which have all contributed.  During this article I will make reference to ‘bigger’ and ‘lesser’ clubs.  This is not to denigrate or disrespect any club, it is merely to demonstrate how some clubs are perceived to be perennial achievers or strugglers and how some clubs performances this season has been very different to how they were expected to perform.

Fancy Dans

First of all the Premier League is a poorer place as far as world class players are concerned.  When you look back a number of stars of the world game have left these shores over the past five years or so.  Players such as Suarez, Modric, Bale, Mascherano, Tevez, van Persie, Drogba, Gerrard and Lampard have all vacated the league and it is poorer for it.  The likes of Aguero, Toure, Hazard, Ozil, Sanchez, Di Maria, Falcao have come in with varying degrees of success but it is difficult to say who is the best player in the league right now.  Hazard was fantastic last season and a deserved player of the year but this season has been a shadow of his former self.  Aguero can’t seem to string more than a couple of games together, Di Maria came in and was a complete failure and Falcao looks as if he’d be better off in another country.  Ozil is beginning to show his class and Sanchez has been excellent since his arrival at Arsenal, but he’s suffering an injury at the moment.

My point is there are some decent players, some very good ones but world class?  Not sure.  But what does seem to have happened is we have gone back to the type of player from abroad who is given the label “he’s good but can he do it on a cold Tuesday night at Stoke?”

When the Premier League began to plunder foreign leagues for new talent this was a common problem.  Often it would take foreign players a season or so to adjust to the pace and physicality of the league.  Which is what made Fernando Torres debut season for Liverpool all the more stunning.  Of course there have been a whole host of players who have come in and hit the ground running, but for those who possess ‘potential’ or maybe just average ability then they can take a while to settle in.  Some of the ‘bigger’ clubs have gone for this type of player, a fancy dan rather than a grafter. 

TV Deal

The new TV deal, a reported £5.14bn, has given many clubs the ability to buy players who once may have been out of reach.  The equality with which the Premier League dishes out the prize money from TV has contributed to many lesser clubs being able to sign players who may only have previously come over here for the bigger clubs.  Yohan Cabaye at Crystal Palace is an example.  He was at Paris St. Germain and with Champions League football almost guaranteed every year, but he chose to return to England to play under Alan Pardew who’d been his boss at Newcastle. 

Stoke City is another example where they have been able to sign the likes of Bojan Krkic and Xherdan Shaqiri.  Bojan was signed from Barcelona, having spent time at Roma, Milan and Ajax, yet he chose Stoke City for his chance to play in the Premier League.  This in no way is to suggest there is anything wrong with Stoke but Bojan is not the type of player they have attracted in the past.  Shaqiri, a Swiss international, was at Basle when there was intense speculation over his next move.  He was reportedly a target for Liverpool but when Bayern Munich came calling he found it too tempting to turn down.  He then moved onto Inter yet Stoke managed to lure him from Serie A. 

The new riches enjoyed by more clubs within the Premier League has enabled players like Cabaye, Bojan and Shaqiri to go to clubs not really considered ‘big’.  The FFP rules have also had an effect on stopping the bigger clubs from just hoovering up all the best talent, and so this talent can now be spread more evenly within the league.

Counter Attack

Many of the lesser clubs no longer just turn up at Old Trafford, Anfield or The Emirates believing they should just lay down and hand over the three points.  They believe if they have a go they might be able to get something from the game.  The other major contributory factor with this is the adoption of the counter attack as a tactic.  Teams are happy to sit back and soak up the pressure and then hit their opponents on the break, at pace.  Leicester City is a prime example of that.  This has been particularly effective in enticing the bigger clubs to keep the ball, knock it around and generally show off but then when they lose it, they’re hit on the break and found to have not left anyone manning the fort at the back.

If you put these two factors together you have a toxic mix, as far as the bigger clubs are concerned, where many league games can be like cup ties with a baying crowd urging their team on as they smell the blood of big names who have spent the past ten to fifteen years lauding it as if it’s some sort of birth right.

It makes for an exciting season and with points seemingly more generously spread throughout the table then few can be sure of where they will finish until we move towards March and April.

Is this a trend or a freak? 

Going back to the point about the type of foreign player who has been recruited by Premier League clubs, many of them are young and come under the ‘potential’ category.  Within a few seasons many of these players should start to realise this potential and become stars.  We may well find those clubs who have recruited more wisely will begin to pull away from the others again, but until this happens we can enjoy a much more equitable competition than we have had to endure for the past five years or so.

No Mour I Love Yous

Another season and another Chelsea manager gets the chop.  Another Chelsea manager gets the sack after the players refuse to play for him.

Just seems like those two statements could be from any of the past ten years in English football but there are some surprising factors to the story this week.  Not least that the once untouchable, almost demi-Godlike Jose Mourinho would go the same way of Carlo Ancelotti and Phil Scolari as stories of the players not playing for the manager anymore, began to do the rounds.

This was Mourinho’s second spell as manager at Stamford Bridge with his first one bringing six trophies in three seasons, the second one had not been as prolific yet still he delivered the Premier League title for the third time. 

Back in May Chelsea were crowned Premier League Champions for the fourth time in their history and the fifth time they have been Champions of England.  They won the league by eight points and looked odds-on to retain it again this season, albeit fending off a sterner challenge from Manchester City.  Yet here we are barely five months of football later and the Champions have jettisoned their most successful manager.  So what has gone wrong?

There doesn’t seem to be any one factor which has contributed to this, but what certainly can’t be denied is Chelsea have not been unlucky.

When comparing with other big clubs who have sacked managers in the last couple of seasons, Brendan Rodgers and David Moyes for example, you can point to them having suffered some bad luck.  Of course you can also point to many of their problems being self-inflicted.  But Chelsea haven’t really had many injuries in the past five months, they haven’t been victim to many poor refereeing decisions.  They haven’t had some of their best players just decide to leave or retire.  What they do seem to have is a vast number of players either alarmingly losing form or just finding it impossible to get themselves going this season, or they just decided they didn’t want Jose in charge anymore.

People have pointed to things going wrong right from pre-season.  It was suggested the players didn’t have a proper build-up to the season with the club preferring to fly them all over the world to add more shirt sales than preparing the players to be the first club to retain the title for seven years.  They were also called back to pre-season training a little later than usual owing to many of them needing a longer rest.

Then on the opening day of the season Mourinho had a spat with club doctor, Eva Caneiro when the Portuguese objected to her going onto the pitch to administer treatment to Eden Hazard.  This always seemed a strange episode and looking back perhaps started the downhill slide which eventually lead to his demise.

Chelsea were struggling to see off a Swansea team at home and things were compounded by the sending off of their keeper, Thibaut Courtois.  Hazard went down under a challenge and immediately Caneiro and physio, Jon Fearn, went to assist.  As Hazard was treated on the pitch he was then obliged to walk to the touchline and wait for the referee to allow him back on.  This meant Chelsea were down to nine men and this seems to be what incensed Mourinho.  The club backed their manager, Caneiro was demoted and made her way to her lawyers, and the spectre of Hazard being injured was to re-emerge this week to haunt Mourinho.

After dropping points at home to Swansea, they were then well beaten at Manchester City and their first win of the season (at West Brom) was soon expunged by defeats at home to Palace and away to Everton.  By the time Southampton came to Stamford Bridge and came away with all three points, the Champions had lost four of their opening eight fixtures.  Within this sequence was an impressive win over Arsenal where they finally showed the form of last season.

But consecutive defeats to West Ham, Liverpool and Stoke City just compounded the misery.  At home to Liverpool they took an early lead but were ultimately swept aside showing defensive frailties unheard of from a Mourinho side.  What did for Jose in the end were back-to-back league defeats to Bournemouth and Leicester City.

Mourinho’s record at Stamford Bridge this season has taken a real pounding.  He went seventy-seven games without losing at home as Chelsea manager before Sunderland prevailed in April 2014.  But thirteen points from a possible twenty-seven at home just hasn’t been good enough for the owner, and with just one win away from home this is what sat them just above the relegation zone.

We may never know why many players, who were excellent last season, have suffered such a slump in form but the likes of Azpilacueta, one of the best defenders in the league, Hazard, footballer of the year last season, Ivanovic, Costa, Fabregas and Oscar have just been woeful.  On Monday night at Leicester, Hazard went down under a challenge from Jamie Vardy and received treatment.  Mourinho tried to get him back on the pitch but the player took one step and then shrugged his shoulders and flounced off.  Mourinho’s comments at the end of the game suggested he was not best pleased with this behaviour.

That post-match interview ultimately put the nails in the coffin as Mourinho chose to criticise his players rather than desperately try and defend them.  He had tried to criticise them earlier in the season, even dropping Matic, Terry and one or two others, but had recently sought to build them up.  He appeared to lose patience as he accused them of ignoring his pre-match tactics.

I think there’s far too much fuss made of whether a manager should criticise his players or not.  For a player who seeks to share no responsibility in a defeat, he may clearly object to any negativity towards him.  But a player has to be able to take criticism of his performance, however it is offered.  There are plenty of opportunities for a manager to back his players, but if he cannot ever make his disappointment known then he is making a rod for his own back where some players believe they are above criticism, and therefore do not have to play to their best in every match.  Players need to be treated differently by managers and who are we to suggest that the manager does not understand how his players’ minds work?

But if a player is to take his manager’s criticism and decide not to bother playing for him, then his sulking is letting down himself, his teammates, the club and their supporters just because he wants to spite the manager.  It’s a measure of the power players have these days they can afford to risk the fortunes of their club in order to force the owners into making a managerial change, knowing their future at that same club may pass unaffected.

But have the Chelsea players underestimated their position with the fans?  From the reaction at the first game of post-Mourinho Chelsea mark two, it would appear they have.  The supporters seem pretty clear in who is to blame, singling out Ivanovic, Costa and Hazard.  Diego Costa was booed off when substituted and no doubt some of the cheers for Ivanovic scoring the first goal were ironic.

As I mentioned at the start of this piece, Chelsea players have form where this is concerned and previously the fans have always backed them.  But it appears they have over-egged their popularity one time too many.

The club have moved quickly to appoint a stop-gap with Guus Hiddink returning to Stamford Bridge for his second spell after he held that position in 2009 after the players decided they’d had enough of Scolari.  He lost just one match during his four month spell and oversaw an FA Cup victory.  Ultimately, Chelsea will need to find a permanent replacement with Pep Guardiola and Diego Simeone being mentioned.  Much may depend on the freedom a new man is given, but he would be taking over a squad much unchanged from that which lifted the Premier League title in May.

It could be an interesting end to the season if Chelsea find themselves still embroiled in a relegation battle.  Clubs who have come through the battle successfully often point to team spirit being an important factor.  But if some players still hold resentment in Mourinho being ousted by other players then when the pressure reaches boiling point it will be interesting to see whether they stick together or start ripping each other apart.

I expect Chelsea to get themselves out of the mess they’re in and where I said you couldn’t point to them being unlucky, this would now be to their advantage.  It may sound simple but all they need to do is play as they can and they should gain enough points to fight off any threat of relegation, but European qualification for next season looks impossible, unless they can win the Champions League.