KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Improvement Under Jurgen Klopp

I am curious to see how people feel about where we are as a club now vs where we were when he arrived. I have been surprised by the gloomy attitude compared to last season especially.

Compared to last season, we have earned two more points than we did last year, and our goal difference is +8 better, but compared to last season when everyone seemed to trust Klopp blindly, there have been a lot of fans very critical of him.

The categories I would consider would be:

League Performance: I would have to say that we have had pretty consistent improvement each year so far. Although he has yet to match BR's best season, which is our best league campaign since the turn of the century at least (probably in the Premier League Era), he has been more consistent then Rodgers who finished 7th (61 Points), 2nd (84 Points) and 6th (62 Points) in his first 3 full seasons. The shared season should count for both of them in which we finished 8th (60 points).

Bar the superb 13-14 season, each season with Rodgers in charge left us between 60-62 points. Even taking that season into account, the average is 66.7 points.

Klopp has had the shared season in which he finished 8th (60 Points), and last season he finished 4th (76 Points), and halfway through this season we are 2 points and 8 goals ahead of last years tally at this stage, so assuming all holds the same, we should finish somewhere between 76-80 points range (usually enough to finish somewhere between 2nd-4th), which would be a minimum average of 70 points, max 72. For me, that's pretty quantifiable progress.

Rodgers had one season that was overall better, but Klopp's only full season wasn't far from it, and his average is definitely higher.

Cup Competition Performance: Rodgers was pretty poor here. The best he ever did was a semi-final against Aston Villa, which he lost.

12-13: FA cup knocked out 4th round by Odlham Athletic.
League cup Knocked out by Swansea City (the winners that year TBF)

13-14: FA Cup Knocked out by Arsenal 5th Round League Cup: Knocked out by United 5th round

14-15: FA Cup Semi-finals, lost to Villa League Cup Semi-finals, knocked out by Chelsea

Kopp has gotten some stick for his performance in the cups, but overall appears to have done slightly better or about the same.

15-16 FA Cup 4th round knocked out by West Ham, League Cup Runners up, lost to City on penalties.

16-17 FA cup 4th round (lost to Wolves) League Cup Semi-finals (lost to Saints)

This season he lost to Leicester City in the 4th round, and we are currently still in the FA cup.

Klopp has gotten to a final and a semi-final, while the best Rodgers could do was two semi-finals. Klopp edges this for me.

European Record: Probably Rodgers' biggest weakness and failure as a manager.

12-13 Lost to Zennit in the Europa League round of 32

13-14 No competiton

14-15 Failed to get out of UCL group stages in a group that contained Ludogrets and Basel, Lost to Besiktas on Pens in round of 32.

Under Rodgers we fell out of the top 50 Uefa Coefficient to a ranking as low as 54th. We were 19th when he took over. That is a 32 point swing in the negative. His only European victory of note was Udinese in the group stages of the EL.

Klopp does done much better so far.

15-16 He got us to the Europa league finals in his first season, knocking out United, Dortmund, and Vilarreal. We lost to Sevilla who have won the competition a record 3 times in a row.


16-17 No competition

17-18 We qualified for the Champions league knock out stages for the first time since 2009, and we are still in the competition. We are the top scorers in the competition so far, and we recorded our biggest ever home and away wins in European competition, and breaking Man United's record as the highest English goal scoring record in the UCL group stages.

Klopp has obviously outdone BR in Europe by some distance, and we've had a lot of progress so far here. We've climbed from 54th to 31st (a 24 point swing in the positive) and notched some notable wins against Dortmund, Manchester United, Hoffenheim, and Vilarreal. With our round of 16 draw against Porto, we could get to the quarters, or even the semi-finals realistically this year, and we could rise to the top 30 again.

Squad Quality: There are two parts to this, the first being transfer record, the second being man-management and player improvement.

Rodgers' Inherited squad-

GK: Reina, Jones,
Def: Johnson, Enrique, Kelly, Flanagan, Agger, Aurelio, Carragher, Robinson, Coates, Skrtel

Mid: Gerrard, Adam, Downing, Spearing, Lucas, Shelvy, Henderson, Suso

Forward: Bellamy, Rodriguez, Carroll, Suarez, Kuyt, Sterling

A little thin in the middle, and definitely ageing, but that isn't a bad squad. The spine of Suarez, Gerrard, Lucas, Reina, Carra, Agger/Skrtel is pretty solid, and they were coming off a season with the joint best defense in the league under Dalglish, and with two genuine world class stars in Suarez and Gerrard. Some duds in there (Adam, Carroll) and some sicknotes (Agger Aurelio), but not bad.

Klopp's Inherrited Squad

GK: Mignolet, Bogdan

Def: Clyne, Toure, Lovren, Sakho, Gomez, Flannagan, Randal, Illori, Smith, Moreno

Mid: Lallana, Henderson, Alberto, Coutinho, Can, Allen, Milner, Stewart, Teixeira,

Forward: Balotelli, Ings, Sturridge, Ibe, Ojo, Firmino, Origi

Oof. Some good players here, but no one at Gerrard or Suarez's stature. The defense is a mess, there are almost no goals, and the team is very green. Some young talent, and some potential, but most the better players in here are either sicknotes (Sturridge, Ings), struggled for consistency (Can, Lallana, Firmino, Coutinho), or had disciplinary issues (Sakho, Balotelli) before Klopp arrived. I would say Rodgers had a better foundation to work with. So how did they improve it?


Transfer Record:

Rodgers didn't fair so well here. Two big successes (Sturridge, Coutinho), and several big failures (Aspas, Balotelli, Allen, Borini, Sahin, Markovic, Benteke, Illori). Some other decentplayers, but they didn't really perform under him (Lallana, Firmino, Can), and a few good bargain stop gaps (Milner, Toure).

Notable outgoings/not properly replaced soon enough: Carragher, Agger, Gerrard, Kuyt, Suarez, Reina

Biggest purchases: Lallana 25M, Benteke 35M, Markovic 25M, Lovren 20M Sakho 18M


Klopp hasn't had nearly as much time, so it's difficult to evaluate, but his rate of success seems a bit higher:

Big successes: Mane and Salah. Definitely comparable to Sudge and Phil in terms of success so far. A few unremarkable bargain buys similar to Rodgers (Grujic, Solanke, Robertson). Jury is still very much out on them. A few bargains (Matip, Wjinaldum). Oxlade-Chamberlain is showing signs of promise, but jury is still out. Keita looks good, but hasn't kicked a ball in a red shirt yet.

Notable outgoings/not properly replaced: Sakho, Lucas, Benteke (reaching here) Can (possibly)

Player Improvement-

This is an area both Klopp and Rodgers were good at. This is their bread and butter.

Rodgers: Notable improvements:

Sterling: Rodgers took him from a skinny teenager with bags of pace and no footballing IQ to the most expensive English player ever. He already had talent, but Rodgers helped him a lot.

Henderson: He was a deer in headlights his first year, but Rodgers helped him use his strengths and got his best two seasons out of him (2013-14, 2014-15). If anyone had told me he would be our captain in 11-12 when he signed, and I would have laughed. Still divides opinion, but much better than his first season.

Gerrard: He had something of a Renaissance in 2013-14, which was his best season since 2009 in terms of goals and assists. He reinvented his game. The unfortunate slip shouldn't cloud over that.

Sturridge: For one season he was the second deadliest striker in the country. Hasn't happened under any other manager.

Coutinho: Was just a young hopeful at Inter.

Suarez: Before Rodgers, he was the most frustrating player to watch. He had flashes of brilliance, but he ran all over the place too much, and he missed sitters and had huge behavior issues. Rodgers turned him into the best player in the league and arguably the best striker on earth at the time. His finishing, his passing, and his attitude all got much better.

Honorable mentions: Downing, Flannagan,

Regressions/Failures:

Johnson was one of our better players under Kenny, but Rodgers managed him very poorly. His defensive weaknesses got worse, and he stopped doing well going forward.

Enrique: See above, but worse.

Reina: Was one of our most successful goalkeepers ever, became crap in a year, was shipped out, and has done well at Napoli since.

Balotelli: don't get me started


Klopp:

Biggest successes:

Lallana: we all thought he was a dud and on his way out, but Klopp turned him into a cult hero and fan favorite. Was seen as light weight with no end product, now seen as our most creative midfielder bar Coutinho, and one of our best pressers.

Coutinho: Was good, but inconsistent under BR. Creative, but never scored more than 4-5 goals. Had his two best seasons under Klopp, and he has become a complete attacking midfielder and a real goal threat.

Sakho: Although they fell out later, he was awesome Klopp's first year. Key in the Europa league run.


Firmino: Probably my favorite player at the club. So misused under BR, now he's our number 9, and has 13 goals in this half of the season so far.

Can: Total enigma under BR, but a very important midfielder for Klopp. Will be sad to see him go.

Moreno: Terrible under BR, improved massively this season.

Honorable mentions: Allen, Origi

Failures: Benteke, Sakho (sort of)

Winner (probably a tie for me, but more regression under Rodgers)

Global Perception/Handling the Media

Rodgers talked a big game, but it was cringey at times. Klopp had us spell-bound for the first two years, and even when he's off his game, he tends to deflect attention from the players.

Klopp wins easily here.


Overall, I have been frustrated at times, because I feel like we have been on the edge of something great for a while now, but we are in a much better place than we were two years ago before Klopp arrived. We're relevant again, and I'm excited to see where this season goes. Is it good enough for us? Probably not where SHOULD be yet, but a sight better than where we were.

I am not sure what you are comparing with last season, but if I go by the table, last season after 18 games we were 2nd in the league with 40 points and a goal difference of 24 compared to the current 34 points and goal difference of 18 putting us 4th in the league. Therefore, it's no progress in the EPL compared to last season. You might say that this season we are in the CL, but then we were also still in the league cup last season which I know is not comparable. That said, if we do not finish in the top 4 this season it will be a failure compared to last year and we have reinforced to be able to manage both competitions. Therefore, I wouldn't say that so far at least we are better positioned than last season though the squad has improved as we haven't lost any major players but have added one monster and a better LB. I would say that this is because we have improved our attack but regressed defensively compared to last season and overall have regressed given the points tally. The good news is that there is the possibility of a step change if we can get the defence right.

I however think that we have improved compared to Rodgers' last season both in squad quality and position, there is no doubt that Klopp has done a good job replacing Suarez and Gerrard. There is no doubt that Klopp is better than Rodgers.

We are still work in progress though I don't understand why it's taking so long to sort our our defence, this should be a basic thing. Sam came in and sorted out Everton's defence over a couple of games without even bringing new players, I even wonder if Klopp can do it. Yes it can be Lovren, but when you watch our games we are not well organised neither.

I don't think there has been much improvement.

Take away the fact we had Gerrard and Suarez. The two teams are very similar.

Both lethal going forward and both shocking in defence.

Both managers spent loads of money and both managers failed to improve our defence.

I still prefer Klopp just because he is getting more from the team.

But I also believe that klopp would have got more from rodgers' team.

It would be nice if we had someone in the team.who could defend.

I don't think there has been much improvement.

Take away the fact we had Gerrard and Suarez. The two teams are very similar.

Both lethal going forward and both shocking in defence.

Both managers spent loads of money and both managers failed to improve our defence.

I still prefer Klopp just because he is getting more from the team.

But I also believe that klopp would have got more from rodgers' team.

It would be nice if we had someone in the team.who could defend.

I think it is the style of play that matters. We are playing an attacking style and it is much harder to fix the defense. It usually takes longer time to fix the defense for an attacking team.

However, I think our defense has improved in Klopp's era, may be just not as fast as you want.

I highlight the goals conceded per season records for your reference:-

2012/13 - 43
2013/14 - 50
2014/15 - 48

2015/16 - 50
2016/17 - 42
2017/18 - 20 (in 18 games) ~ 42 per game (if projected it to full year)

In the Rodgers' era, our average goals conceded was 47 per season.

In the 2015/16, when Klopp took charge in the middle of the season, the defensive record was more or less the same, 50 per season.

In Klopp's first full season, our goals conceded was 42, which is 8 goals less than the first half season when Klopp took charge and the 5 goals less than average of the Rodgers era.

This season, the defensive record stayed more or less the same as last year (with our key member Clyne sat out up to now and never start a game so far). However, most goals were conceded in the early of the season and our defense department looks more solid in recent games, which only conceded 7 in our last 12 games, which is a very impressive run.

Klopp has spent very little

Klopp has spent very little

On average net spend I don't think it's much less but then Rodgers is a rookie compared to Klopp, so is definitely not the reference for Klopp. His reference should be Pep and Mourinho.