It’s somewhat like comparing apples and oranges, since Klopp has better players and more pull. That being said, he largely helped build where we are now from where Brendan left it.
To be clear, Brendan was (is) a less-experienced manager than Jurgen, and I think the former is a much better manager than he was six years ago. That said, Klopp seems to have a great balance between a philosophy and pragmatism. When he first came in, we seemed to rely a lot on the press, as it was what had worked so well at Dortmund. Seeing teams sit deep against us forced him to rethink our style of play slightly to great effect, and we’ve made small tactical evolutions since into a very versatile side that can win games any number of ways. With Rodgers, it all felt a bit “wild” as Zoran said. Our defensive issues didn’t stop when Klopp came in, really not being rectified until Virgil arrived, but Rodgers didn’t seem to have a clear defensive philosophy; meanwhile, Klopp seems to have a different level of knowledge in terms of how to press even if it wasn’t being executed the way he wanted; you hear him talk about the distances between players, the angles, etc. whereas I never heard that with Rodgers. To be fair, he is probably right when he claims he would have won the League with a better defence: without Carragher alongside him, Skrtel had 0 leadership capabilities, Lovren was supposed to be that leader but turned out to be a headcase, Sakho showed promising signs but was ultimately inconsistent, Toure was clearly past his best, and he didn’t fancy Agger. And that’s not even considering Mignolet made howlers in the away losses to Man City and Chelsea, which could be said were decisive in the title race. In an attacking sense, he did well to get the best out of Suarez in both of their years together, I would argue, but when he left and Sturridge was out all that time, he seemed to be throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what stuck…and the fact that he took credit for going to 3 at the back and a (somewhat underwhelming IMHO) unbeaten run in winter 2014-15 only to get dominated by United the Sunday after that statement was pretty telling.
Some of that is just having better players, but you see that Klopp pretty much built the team from scratch when he came in. In terms of recruitment, it’s obvious that Klopp has more to choose from given his pull as a manager, but he also seems to have an excellent understanding of what kind of player he wants: it seems like he buys the player to fit the system rather than the inverse. Brendan (without UCL football or Klopp’s pull, it has to be said) bought in Allen and Borini to start, players whom he genuinely wanted, and Sturridge and Coutinho performed well during 13-14, but then post-Suarez seemed to buy players that didn’t really fit the system; not even speaking about Balotelli, but the move for Benteke was puzzling, as it seemed to be the antithesis of everything his pass-and-move style stood for. (I know we needed a center forward given Sturridge’s lack of availability, but not that one necessarily.)
In terms of the media, I used to roll my eyes at some of Rodgers’ press conferences — to be fair, I was in one when he was in Boston in 2012 — because he seemed to just speak in cliches. Klopp seems to speak a bit more authentically. I prefer Klopp’s style, but just an opinion.
TL;DR: Klopp has built the club from where Brendan had it to where it is now. In one sense, that made it easier for us to get the players we wanted — a virtuous cycle — but simply buying players without a plan is rarely successful (lol, United). IMHO Rodgers is a far better manager now than he was, so that needs to be remembered, but I don’t know that — hypothetically, if the shoe was on the other foot — he would have been able to take us from where we were in the same way Klopp did.
. To say look at his transfers at Leicester now is a massive generalization of who is responsible for them.