https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/the-end-of-the-klopp-era-frustrated-liverpool-boss-must/2h3qc4l6t9gi1btn0go7q1ezp
This is the sort of lazy journalism that gets on my nerves.
He acknowledges that the source of our problems was the injuries in the central defence but he admonishes Klopp for using Fabinho as a CB, completely sidestepping the fact that there was no else available.
He correctly claims that the team is in need of fresh ideas but he doesn’t mention that acquiring Thiago was a step towards introducing something new and different. Lijnders had stated before the season started that one of the main objectives was to become more unpredictable. However, that’s hard to accomplish with a shortened preseason, a defence that has been ripped apart and an unprecedented pile-up of injuries in a condensed season with games coming thick and fast.
His one uncontentious view is the high line. It hasn’t worked and Klopp should drop it. Even still it’s understandable why Klopp has stuck with it. That’s how the team has been drilled to defend for the last several seasons. Altering the defensive approach in the middle of the season would bring about a whole new set of issues. The results though with the high line have been calamitous, albeit the high line is far from the only reason.
Lastly, he raises the question if this is the end of the Klopp era. He isn’t wrong that it’s rare for a manager to survive such a season, but Klopp isn’t any manager and LFC isn’t any random club. His position is the most secure in the game. The only person who could end Klopp’s time at Liverpool, is Klopp himself.
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I have largely stopped reading articles even news even from largely authoritative sources like BBC, Guardian, etc. There’s barely any substances anymore, everything is driving some agenda or fetish.
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There is a large element of hindsightism to that article. The criticism of using Fabinho as a CB is nonsensical given he was one of the 4 CBs in the first team squad at the start of the season. Maybe not buying a CB to replace Lovren in the Summer was the mistake? Certainly I was nervous going into the season. It’s not that Fabinho can’t do a good job as a CB. It’s the simple fact he’s our best DM, one of the best in the world and we lose so much from the midfield when he’s not there.
The high line criticisms are all valid. We’ve always been high but we went ultra high this season. The Villa game blew that strategy apart and we dropped a little after that. Now we’re getting caught simply because we don’t have the same midfield press (form/injuries) and we don’t have the pace at the back (injuries).
Could he be a bit more pragmatic now? Yes, maybe but there is no inherent issue with JK and change. He has always embraced it. I don’t get the criticism there. The team of 2018 - 20 played in a totally different way to the team of 15 - 17. I just think it has been really difficult for him to implement change this season given the schedule and the injuries. Every season til now has worked to a distinct plan. We start off slowly, gradually reaching a peak in form and fitness around Christmas, then there’s the reset of the winter camps and the cycle begins again with us peaking at the end ot the season. That’s all gone out the window this last 12 months. We are just going game to game. We work to such fine margins with a smallish squad that any disruption to the schedule has a big knock on effect.
All the ‘experts’ are now queuing up to have a pop at JK and, yes, mistakes have been made this season but it’s also been an exceptional season with some exceptionally bad luck. For me it just puts everything that he’s achieved since he’s been here in even sharper focus. He looks so pissed off right now. I hope he gets a decent break over the Summer because he looks like he needs one. He’s worked miracles for us and even God gave himself a day off.
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It’s a reflection of what some have been saying. Like me.
Fabs in defense for me was the turning point. We had Nat and Rhys who surely knew our system yet were ignored by Klopp. Saying there was noone else is false and lazy.
It’s a matter of opinion what playing Nat and/or Rhys might have turned up however it is undeniable it was an option.
That’s lazy a few have been defending the continuation of the high line though at times it has been too high under specific circumstances.
What he does miss out is the utter wastefulness of our strikers. If they had remained on the ball we would have gotten more draws and wins despite the defense.
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There is a lot of hindsight being spouted re Klopp, but one or two observations are fair.
The club started the season with only three senior centre backs, of whom two were known to be terribly injury prone, which was poor planning.
Gomez and Matip have never completed a season without missing at least a third of it through injury, so Fabinho was very likely to spend a large chunk of the season in defence.
Given that you can’t plan for when injuries would mean him going back into defence, it was always likely he’d have to play there when we really needed him in midfield, not occasional and planned for defensive cover like domestic cups for example.
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Much was spouted at the time as well.
Klopp made a call and it turned out to be a bad one but for some of us a predictable one. Expecting 2 of VVD, Gomez and Matip to be available all season just never added up, as you said. That’s not hindsight!
You are entitled to think that Phillips and Williams together are an option. Klopp clearly doesn’t agree and I suspect neither does the vast majority of fans.
However, you don’t get to say that he ignored them. Phillips is a regular and Williams was employed as far as his lack of pace and experience permitted. Claiming otherwise is nonsensical.
The point is Klopp made a call and got bitten on the arse. Claiming otherwise is nonsensical.
If Rhys and Nat weren’t an option why didn’t we replace Lovren?
That’s where the nonsense comes in!
Because Fab was the replacement, with CM being the area we had the most bodies to accommodate dropping one of them into another role.
Arguing that because something hasn’t gone well that taking a different course would have necessarily meant a better outcome is a fallacy. The reality is that Williams is a lesser player than Fab in general, and by a considerable margin. And in the eyes of most people, most tellingly those who count, also not as good a defender.
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The reasoning isn’t sound when you consider we are not talking CM but DM where we only have 2 viable options (Hendo or Fabs). The DM position in our 433 system is essential. We lost that.
Fabs is better player so shuld be where he plays best not where he is unconventional, unorthodox, at such a level knowledge of the position is very important imo.
That is a fair opinion.
Arguing a counterfactual as evidence of the rightfulness of your opinion is not (that because what happened was not good the alternative that didnt happen would have necessarily been better).
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Surely I idn’t argue a counterfactual but asked a question, no?
Otherwise all good and proper.
(Btw it’s a long time now that I haven’t bothered with explainations as the main points always get ignored so no detail from me). I still haven’t made my main points which are mainly in connection to Gini. 
Perhaps another way to think about the Fabinho situation is this.
Although he was said to be the 4th choice emergency centre back for this season, the reality of the injury record of Gomez and Matip meant that in reality our 4th choice centre back is always a de facto third choice in terms of likely playing time there.
All of Lovren, Gomez and Matip saw a reasonable number of games alongside VVD in recent seasons as at least one of the others was always out injured.
So sell one of them and whoever was going to cover the 4th slot from elsewhere (be that a versatile full back or midfielder) was always going to be used at centre back more than emergency only.
For me the folly was not necessarily nominating Fab as the 4th centre back, but doing so without swapping Matip or Gomez for a reliable player who would mostly be available.
I think that Klopp was anticipating that Fabinho would get minutes at CB with Matip’s fitness issues and to a lesser extent Gomez’s. It was a risk that Klopp was probably willing to take. What he couldn’t have foreseen was losing for the season Van Dijk in October, Gomez in November and Matip in January.
The irony is that even if he had prioritised getting a replacement for Lovren, it still wouldn’t have been enough. Another defender would have been required in the winter transfer market anyway.
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I see it the other way, that the replacement that would have helped us is a replacement for Gomez/ Matip (2nd choice CB) and not Lovren. Lovren’s replacement should have been either of Matip/ Gomez.
I totally can understand though why the gamble was made, given the number of midfielders we had, retaining Gini and adding Thiago. While I have no complaints for the previous summer, I would be disappointed if the club takes a similar stance/ gamble this summer as well. That would be a risk too high and unavoidable given what we have been through and sort of lesson not learnt yet.
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Some would say it was a risk too high this season. We made exactly the same mistake that City made last season going into it with only 3 recognised CBs. They learnt from their mistake. We repeated it. As soon as we decided that Fabinho was going to be the 4th CB it was always the case that he was going to spend a lot of time playing in that position. Lovren was 4th CB last season and he started 14 games. I don’t remember anyone clamouring for Nat Phillips or Rhys Williams to be the 4th CB at the start of the season. I’m sure most people would have thought that was a ridiculous idea. So blaming JK for using Fabinho there is crazy.
There is a lot of work to be done in the summer to put this right because I’m not expecting to be seeing much of Gomez in the first half of next season and don’t expect to see much of Matip at all.
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agree.
i cant be bothered, but this ultimately has its own issues, i just dont have an interest, or an understanding of most issues anymore. my world has become narrow becuase of the quality of news i can access.
i know theres a bit of a joke in there at my expense, but after years of reading any given news article and trying to find the angle,agenda or loose facts ive stopped taking in actual news.
i like factual stuff like history and space exploration, good news storys and football, but footballs partly just because i have a level of understanding of the game that i can immediately nut out for myself whether the article is fluff or a good analysis of what i am watching.
not a lot to do with Jurgen, sorry.
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Football has always been an escape for me. Not because I have or have had a bad life in any way. More in the sense that it was something different from my normal life. I like to think that I was raised in the right way. Respect my elders, the law and women. Always be well mannered. Work hard, play hard but fair. But from the age of eleven, standing on The Kop (I was too much of a wimp to go in the Boys’ Pen more than once) I realised that I could be a different person. I could sing at the top of my voice. I could swear both in song and in abusing an opposition player, linesman or referee. I could do what I wanted for ninety minutes, a couple of times a week and then go home and be respectful again. No harm done to anybody (well maybe a few refs felt bad about themselves for a while).
Nowadays though, it’s not the same. I’ve watched plenty of The Reds’ matches on telly over the years. It was always a pleasure. Not any more though. If Mo was to receive the ball on the edge of our area in the ninetieth minute and run up the pitch to score the winner, I wouldn’t cheer. I’d start scrolling back in my mind for anything could have happened since kick off that the officials could use to cancel the goal out.
I have to say that by nature I’m not paranoid or a conspiracy theorist. But the fates, authorities, whatever seem to be going out of their way to make this season hard for us.
Which in a roundabout way brings us to Jürgen. I’m a fan, as each of you are here. If Liverpool don’t do well then I feel bad. Sometimes really, really bad and sometimes really atrociously bad if we don’t win. I wrote above about how following this team is a release for me. I feel that Jürgen is a kindred spirit. He seems like a lovely fella on the whole and also mostly when he’s going about his every day job managing The Reds. Sometimes he let’s his nice guy persona slip and will snarl or be sparky with an official or a reporter/interviewer.
This season has been horrible for me. After the highs of the last couple of seasons this has been a massive drop. I hate to think how Jürgen is feeling. The night before one of our usual (but with added importance) games of the season. Who to pick? How will they line up? Who’s fit? Fabinho, defence or midfield?
Over the years I’ve questioned quit a few of The Boss’s decisions. Many a time I’ve got to my seat at Anfield and heard the teamsheet called out and wondered why player X was dropped and player Y was playing? Then we’ve gone on to win comfortably. He’s chosen wisely throughout most of his tenure. I’ll back him to do whatever he thinks is right.
Just to save myself a post in the manure pre match thread, I’ll say now that
I trust Jürgen and his team to choose the right personnel, formation and tactics to roll that manure into the grass of old toilet.
COYR YNWA 
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At one point we had eight centre-backs out injured. Why people think buying a lad to replace Lovren would make a difference is a bit of a puzzle.
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