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Clyne is not a big miss to the defence as Gomez is doing a good job there. Our problem has been and still is central defence and Klopp has not been able to sort it.
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Under 16 Player
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Clyne is not a big miss to the defence as Gomez is doing a good job there. Our problem has been and still is central defence and Klopp has not been able to sort it.
No! Clyne is a big miss. A few goals were came from RB this year when Arnold was playing. Including the goal versus Hoffenheim and a few goals versus Citeh. Both Arnold and Gomez were not as consistent as Clyne, expecially in the first two months of this season. West Ham's goal was Gomez got caught out of position and being scored afterwards. They were sometimes out of position and being dribbled past too easily, which made our centre back's work much harder as Matip needs to cover them often. Both have improved and become more consistent in the recent weeks tho. That's may be why we are much more solid recently.
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Under 16 Player
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[quote=paul66][quote=Mr Bojangles]
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. But, you should also take the net spending of these managers and the squad they had when they took charge. Pep inherited with a talent squad and can also spend like fun. I can imagine what is the reactions of some fans if we spend something like 50M for Danilo who played for less than 30% of their league game. Agree, City and United have more money however, I don't think even Klopp would agree to be compared with Rodgers bit feels he is in the same league as Pep etc. To me, Klopp, Pochettino, Wenger, Pep, Mourihno, all of them are world class managers. However, Klopp got a harder job when comparing with the rest of them. Pep inherited a talent squad and got unlimited fund. Mourihno got unlimited fund and he was lucky not to be fired in his first season because he faced weak opponents in Europa and able to win it. Wenger was a world class manager and is still considered to be a good one by me. He has the time to build up the squad and his team was quite consistent in the last decades. Although he cant win a lot of things, he is able to get his team into the top 4 with quite limited fund. Poch inherited with a group of talented players. Those like Vertongen, Lloris, Dembele, Kane, Eriksen were in the team and their performance was actually quite good before Poch arrived. These players remain the key members of Spurs now. Poch did a great job to take Dele Ali to the next level tho. Besides, the vision of Spurs management is much greater than FSG. Although they didnt spend a lot like us, they spend wisely. They set a long term strategy and you can clear see that their recruitment on managers and players are all based on the long term strategy. Finally, the pressure from their fans is not as high as us. For Klopp, he inherited with a team that full of under-performing players. With one real asset called Coutinho but even Coutihno was not half the man he is now. A lot of under-performing players like Firmino/Lallana and the team was left with no real winger. The only forward who can really scored was an injired prone Sturridge. He has a lower starting point to be honest. I believe he did a great job for improving us. We are not a finished article yet but we are definitely improving.
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Liverpool Legend
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Clyne is not a big miss to the defence as Gomez is doing a good job there. Our problem has been and still is central defence and Klopp has not been able to sort it.
No! Clyne is a big miss. A few goals were came from RB this year when Arnold was playing. Including the goal versus Hoffenheim and a few goals versus Citeh. Both Arnold and Gomez were not as consistent as Clyne, expecially in the first two months of this season. West Ham's goal was Gomez got caught out of position and being scored afterwards. They were sometimes out of position and being dribbled past too easily, which made our centre back's work much harder as Matip needs to cover them often. Both have improved and become more consistent in the recent weeks tho. That's may be why we are much more solid recently. You seem to say that Clyne doesn't make mistake which is BS. You also recently said that we have conceded only 2 more than Spurs but omitting to say the players they missed
Last edited by TiredReds; 19/12/17 12:06 PM.
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1st Team Squad
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1st Team Squad
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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.
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'm comparing the results to the same fixtures last year. I find that is more accurate. Here's a table detailing it. https://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=337435.0So compared to our results against the same teams (substituting the newly promoted sides, of course) we have 35 points compared to 32 last season, with a better goal differential. If it were so basic, surely Rodger or Klopp would have it sorted then? If we want to play 8 men behind the ball, in an organized safe formation, we'd concede less, but we'd score fewer. In Kenny's full season this was the case, and he got the sack because we didn't win enough games.
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1st Team Squad
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1st Team Squad
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It is self explanatory all bar two of our immediate rivals have conceded less bar
Spurs who are missing most of there top defenders
And the Goons are level
The rest
Chelsea 6 fewer
City 8 fewer
Utd 8 fewer
Burnley 8 fewer
That could equate to 12 points as most teams that score twice win
And weather other teams are conceding more or less is irelivent we talking Lfc and our defence has been complained about for many years I don’t see any improvement there our mids the same ! our front is ok as long as it’s an open game if they defend solid we can’t break it down, which has also been a prob for many seasons same the midfield so based on that there’s more that’s not improved than that has imo
Burnley is a great example, because they have only scored 16 goals. Defensively they are solid, but they have a GD of +4. That isn't good enough for a top 4 team, and they will be very fortunate to finish in the European places. We've conceded more than Chelsea, United and City, yes, but we've outscored everyone except United and City. United and City are a level above everyone else, but we're keeping very close to Conte, and we're outperforming Poch and Wenger. As for the teams that score twice win bolx, that's just not true. Otherwise Liverpool and Arsenal would have a lot more points. We have some ways to go on the low block sides, but our results against Palace, Leicester, Brighton, or Huddersfield as compared to our results against the same (or the teams they replaced), we've won games that we often drew or lost last season. Side note: why do you hate punctuation? Lack of periods, commas, and question marks make your posts very hard to read.
Last edited by redordead13; 19/12/17 02:20 PM.
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Liverpool Legend
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Liverpool Legend
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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.
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'm comparing the results to the same fixtures last year. I find that is more accurate. Here's a table detailing it. https://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=337435.0So compared to our results against the same teams (substituting the newly promoted sides, of course) we have 35 points compared to 32 last season, with a better goal differential. If it were so basic, surely Rodger or Klopp would have it sorted then? If we want to play 8 men behind the ball, in an organized safe formation, we'd concede less, but we'd score fewer. In Kenny's full season this was the case, and he got the sack because we didn't win enough games. I am not sure why comparing by team is more accurate than the number of games played when we are half way in the season. Teams change from one season to the other anyway and what counts is where we are relative to the others, no? So the first measure for me would be our rank then number of points after so many fixtures. I would understand to do it your way at the beginning of the season, but now I think we need to look at the table, this is the ultimate measure.
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Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 8,564
1st Team Squad
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OP
1st Team Squad
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 8,564 |
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.
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'm comparing the results to the same fixtures last year. I find that is more accurate. Here's a table detailing it. https://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=337435.0So compared to our results against the same teams (substituting the newly promoted sides, of course) we have 35 points compared to 32 last season, with a better goal differential. If it were so basic, surely Rodger or Klopp would have it sorted then? If we want to play 8 men behind the ball, in an organized safe formation, we'd concede less, but we'd score fewer. In Kenny's full season this was the case, and he got the sack because we didn't win enough games. I am not sure why comparing by team is more accurate than the number of games played when we are half way in the season. Teams change from one season to the other anyway and what counts is where we are relative to the others, no? So the first measure for me would be our rank then number of points after so many fixtures. I would understand to do it your way at the beginning of the season, but now I think we need to look at the table, this is the ultimate measure. Because some teams like Swansea we still haven't played yet. After we have played our 19th fixture we are halfway, but not just yet. That is a personal preference. We'll see how it looks at the end. For me, just comparing the table to where it was last season isn't accurate, because we didn't finish second, we finished 4th.
Last edited by redordead13; 19/12/17 02:43 PM.
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 22,926
Liverpool Legend
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Liverpool Legend
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 22,926 |
This is what worries me, ie, if we were 2nd mid season and finished 4th, where will we finish if we are 4th. Hopefully rotation means there will not be a drop in form, else no top 4
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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 462
Under 16 Player
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Under 16 Player
Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 462 |
Clyne is not a big miss to the defence as Gomez is doing a good job there. Our problem has been and still is central defence and Klopp has not been able to sort it.
No! Clyne is a big miss. A few goals were came from RB this year when Arnold was playing. Including the goal versus Hoffenheim and a few goals versus Citeh. Both Arnold and Gomez were not as consistent as Clyne, expecially in the first two months of this season. West Ham's goal was Gomez got caught out of position and being scored afterwards. They were sometimes out of position and being dribbled past too easily, which made our centre back's work much harder as Matip needs to cover them often. Both have improved and become more consistent in the recent weeks tho. That's may be why we are much more solid recently. You seem to say that Clyne doesn't make mistake which is BS. You also recently said that we have conceded only 2 more than Spurs but omitting to say the players they missed To be frank, Clyne seldoms makes mistakes and was one of the most consistent defenders of us. (his crossing is worse than TAA and Gomez tho) Do you think Clyne will make as much mistakes as TAA and Gomez in the early of the season? He was badly missed and I remember some members in this forum also mentioned that back in Oct. However, Gomez started to get back the feeling of the game in Nov and has been much more consistent. TAA is still shaky sometimes but is also much more better than the start of the season too.
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