Klopp’s Liverpool 2.0
ARTICLE BY MATTHEW
<Jurgen Klopp signing a four year extension shortly before the rumors started swirling about Mane and Salah possibly leaving one after the other in the next year signals one thing to me: Klopp is indeed building another team.
Stu made the point of Klopp saying something along the lines of we’d undergo a squad rebuild and then go again, and while many of us initially brushed it off as nothing major, the events of the past few months indicate that the evolution has hit a new stage in development. We will start to see players that we love leave the club in order to make way for the next generation of superstars, while the players that want to be here have been locked up long term already.
Regardless of whether Mane and Salah stay as we surely would like (reports suggest the club’s main focus this summer was locking those two players down with new contracts), I think now is the time when the people who won’t commit long term to the future project will leave and therefore create major funds that will be used to fully transition from Klopp’s initial winners of everything to a new dawn, a new era hopefully as successful as the current one.
As much as I hate to say it, I think the loss in the Champions League final was symbolic of a group that’s played so much football for so long finally running out of gas after such a great run of success. We looked tired, a bit out of new ideas, nothing coming off like it used to. Perhaps it is time for change and evolution, and if it is, we picked an excellent time for it.
Let’s firstly take a look at the age of our current squad. A lot of them have either just turned 30 or are about to reach that age. And while that age certainly isn’t a bad thing for a footballer, it does mean that they could be more susceptible to a drop in performance, or injuries. These players also tend to be very well-paid for their services. Liverpool FC under Klopp’s reign have long been a team that has focused on the margins.
If the wage bill is just a fraction too uncontrollable, if a player is just slightly past their peak, then the red machine begins to show chinks in its armor. We win by extracting everything we can out of every part of the club, and sometimes that means letting someone go before their decline rather than having to pay for it. The notable exception to this line of thinking was the contract extension of Henderson, who was already in his 30s when he extended until 2025.
But he’s the club captain, one of the key leaders on and off the pitch, so you bite the bullet on that one and pray he doesn’t decline too hard. But in the case of Mane, Salah, Firmino, Keita, Milner and Ox, all of whom have contracts that expire in the next 12 months, an exception might not be made to keep them around. We see that Mane is already likely on his way, and Salah will likely follow him after next season. Now is the time to bring in the last major pieces needed to keep us competitive for the next decade.
I’ve said many, many times that this transfer window is gonna be absurd. Even with Haaland and Mbappe now off the table, and with Bellingham and Nkunku likely staying with their clubs for another season, there is still loads of talent available for relatively cheap prices. Bayern seem to be cornering such a market with Noussair Mazraoui, Ryan Gravenberch and likely Mane joining the Bavarians, but it must be remembered that they’ll be losing Lewandowski this summer too.
Darwin Nunez is someone who’s been linked heavily with us and while I think he could be the next Suarez, this would mean we’re definitely shifting to the 4-2-3-1 full-time next season. He doesn’t press enough to fit as the false nine, nor is his passing good enough. Plus we also signed Carvalho and he’s best as a CAM. This is what I mean by the final pieces of the evolution. We had one last ride with the current core, now some of those core pieces will leave soon and we’ll shift into a new team with new pieces that will hopefully find similar success.
Nunez is one, Tchouameni could’ve been another if he hadn’t moved to Madrid. Antony and Cody Gakpo look like options from the Eredivisie, so does Ibrahim Sangare. And with hopefully some cash to splash, Klopp should find some solid players to work with.
Another reason I suggest the tactical shift being a real thing is because of our current midfield. We have a lot of midfielders suited to playing such a formation, Thiago especially worked well in a double pivot for years at Bayern. Klopp used this formation at Dortmund with great success. And also, let’s remember that our midfield looks a bit light on numbers considering that injuries often wreak havoc on players like Thiago and Keita, not to mention that Hendo and Milly are starting to enter a bit of physical decline.
Moving to a system that requires less midfielders in the squad would be a smart move. This is without mentioning that Jones, Elliott, and Naby could probably play off the wing or through the middle in the 4-2-3-1. The one thing this system would need is more wingers considering that, with Mane likely gone, Salah and Diaz are likely the only two true wingers.
Jota can play there but doesn’t usually excel, Nunez is strictly a striker, and Firmino is likely restricted to playing as a striker or a CAM in the 4-2-3-1. Good thing that Antony or Gakpo could be bought then, right? It makes sense why we’ve been linked to Nkunku as well because he could fill a variety of roles in such a formation, he’d even be more comfortable in it because Leipzig play with a 4-2-3-1.
Kouadio Kone, a player I’ve highlighted as a possible target for us? Played all season with Monchengladbach in a 4-2-3-1. If Nunez comes, then this is definitely happening in my opinion. The Carvalho signing and the links we’ve seen recently make more sense if we are switching formations. Another sign of a clear break between the old core and the new one.
Lastly, I know we all love to think that the 4-3-3 and the old era was such a great one, because it was in terms of trophies and memories. It was the era where Liverpool reclaimed its perch and became a dominant team again. But the problems with the 4-3-3 were never really solved, as much as we tried. Our midfield couldn’t match the creativity of City’s, we had trouble creating much when teams figured out how to nullify Trent and Robertson, and we could get caught out of position on the counterattack. As good as we were, we still had issues. Now I know what you’re gonna say, how does a different formation solve such problems.
I can’t guarantee anything, but I think Thiago was a key turning point in the change of the system. His playmaking ability created another outlet so that teams couldn’t focus on Trent and Robertson as much, although Real did a good job in the Champions League final of nullifying all three of them. The CAM in the 4-2-3-1 allows for more creativity in the middle of the pitch, more driving runs typical of what you’d see from de Bruyne. More long shots capable of at least testing the goalie, more slick passing centrally to open things up for a poacher like Nunez to slide in and grab some easy goals.
Bayern used this system to score over 100 goals in the Bundesliga alone in 2020/21, with Muller feeding passes into Lewandowski while Coman, Gnabry and Sane terrorized opponents on the wing. Thiago pinged passes from deep in 2019/20 for them, Kimmich did so while providing the steel, Goretzka last season was an absolute tank that would shoot from distance or make late runs into the box for tap-ins, and Davies was blazing fast and used that speed to be yet another creative outlet.
That type of smothering attack with creativity oozing all over the pitch is something that Klopp and likely Pep Lijnders are looking for in such an evolution. Bayern also played with a high line and their pressing was similar to ours. And we all know how incredible that machine was when it had all the pieces in place in 2019/20. Some German influence for a German manager.
Overall, I think these next two years will be pivotal for our future success. We will have world class players leaving and we must replace them while designing a system to get the best out of their replacements. Fortunately, this seems to be exactly what we’re doing. Continuing with the succession plan and hopefully finding greater success in the next four years of Klopp’s reign will be the goal, I have a feeling that Klopp’s Liverpool 2.0 might be even better than the original.
Recent Comments