COG imparting culture lessons.
Nothing new there
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Nah, this shit is likely part of the reason Klopp is burnt out. Who cares about “American Football” for starters. Why the fuck does Klopp have to do this shitty media with some first time coach that he doesn’t know from Adam just because they quoted him. Also labelling them “two leaders in their field showing respect” is a slap in the face to Klopp given the other guy is apparently a new coach.
Yuck. Sorry Jurgen that LFC wastes your time like that
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Goodness, quite the overreaction to being asked to give a 30 second response to a new coach who clearly respects him. Looks like it meant something to Brian Callahan which is nice.
Why am I not surprised!
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IMO, Klopp’s downside is that he had too high tolerance of underperforming and aging players: Lallana, Chamberlain, Keita, Milner (already past expiry date after Covid season), and Henderson in his last 2 seasons. Consequently, we missed the chance to replenish our ranks earlier, especially in the midfield.
For example, we could have approached Rice a few years or at least a year before Arsenal did (let face it, he made huge impacts on Arsenal). Endo is good but already 31 years old - he won’t last long and thus we still have to buy a DM (unless the management is so delusional that they decide to bet on Taylor frigging Morton).
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Lallana, Chamberlain, and Keita weren’t didn’t have any performance issues. They weren’t just fit enough to contribute consistently. Milner did OK as a bit part player. Only Henderson and Fabinho were spent.
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Keita took a long time to get upto speed even when he was Fit.
Ox and Thiago didn’t have that much of an issue on that front. When they were fit , they were performing at a decent level. Keita didn’t.
Lallana departed much more earlier from the club when the existing midfield was still firing. The whole problem with the midfield was that the guys who were supposed to replace Milner , Henderson basically didn’t. Due to lots of factors. Pair that with Gini leaving and that became the recipe for disaster.
Keita started very well, not too dissimilar to Szobo’s start here. He had a lot of decent games (more than Ox), but of course overall it wasn’t enough. He usually didn’t need a lot of time to get up to rhythm, Midtjylland away and Madrid away (2021) aside. Those two were atrocious, but those were exceptions that proved the rule if you like.
Lallana had a high quality 16/17 season as the right sided #8 (first season we flipped the structure to 4-3-3), but then since he got injured near the end of pre-season in 2017. He was never the same player again, so that unfortunately remained as his peak with us. Plus, we went up a level and he was only used as a squad filler here and there.
Keita had about 2 really good games, didn’t sparkle again and then got injured.
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Ox & Keita definitely had performance issues - they never played at their pre-injury level again.
The biggest issue is that Ox and Keita took away vacancies that could have been filled with new players (their wages were above £120k/week, both of them).
The same problem can also apply to Henderson after 2021. However, IMO Henderson even in his twilight phase was still capable of producing better performance than Endo on a few good days - hence his leaving definitely caused some void that could not really be explained. I mean, I have never seen our team playing as bad as last night at Anfield with Henderson on the pitch.
Hindsight is 20-20. I will take Klopp, all day long, perceived warts and all.
If he did show a little ‘excess’ loyalty to some players, the flip side of that is the unity and buy-in from the group. Very few teams have the same sense of togetherness that Klopp builds, and I would imagine that loyalty to players is an important part of that.
Yes, loyalty has its limitations, but let’s not overdo the critique, because with the gaggle of old age pensioners and sicknotes we are focusing on, Klopp came to within a gnats knickers of an unprecedented quadruple.
Yes, the wheels fell off rather quickly after that, as the midfield in particular was all-of-a-sudden past it, and even at that point, I’m giving Klopp credit, because he rapidly refreshed the whole engine room with a selection of ballers that will serve us well for years to come.
The new manager will be thankful for this inheritance.
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