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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 462
Under 16 Player
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Under 16 Player
Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 462 |
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. I think the home and away fixtures also make a different? Sometimes, although it is halfway of the season but who you play away and who you play at home counts.
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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 462
Under 16 Player
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Under 16 Player
Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 462 |
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 To be honest, that's what I always say about how we should benefit from rotation. Last year, we were brilliant in the first three months of the season and then our players had tired legs and performance dropped. This is why there is a rotation policy this year to keep our players fresh and make sure we didnt repeat our mistakes in last season and our performance wont drop in the second half of this season.
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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 To be honest, that's what I always say about how we should benefit from rotation. Last year, we were brilliant in the first three months of the season and then our players had tired legs and performance dropped. This is why there is a rotation with policy this year to keep our players fresh and make sure we didnt repeat our mistakes in last season and our performance wont drop in the second half of this season. Well, we'll see. Not buying a central defender has cost us points, let's see how rotation with Ox gets us points to finish better than last season.
Last edited by TiredReds; 20/12/17 03:55 AM.
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Joined: Dec 2015
Posts: 5,936
1st Team Squad
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1st Team Squad
Joined: Dec 2015
Posts: 5,936 |
I don't mind rotation in moderation but wholesale changes are costing us BIG TIME! 4 points dropped in our last 3 games because of wholesale changes. PL & CL we should be using our best available 11 every time, get the games won and then manage player playing time! I personally hate seeing Keeper rotation because we don't have the luxury in this department. If Klopp believes Karius is one that is competition to Mignolet, then drop Mignolet from PL & CL because he is not consistent and has had howlers just like Lovren without the personal problems. The fact Mignolet is consistently under scrutiny for god knows how long? shows that we need to try something different.
Karius has much better distribution and suits our play much better than laboured Mignolet anyhow!
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 22,926
Liverpool Legend
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Liverpool Legend
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 22,926 |
I don't mind rotation in moderation but wholesale changes are costing us BIG TIME! 4 points dropped in our last 3 games because of wholesale changes. PL & CL we should be using our best available 11 every time, get the games won and then manage player playing time! I personally hate seeing Keeper rotation because we don't have the luxury in this department. If Klopp believes Karius is one that is competition to Mignolet, then drop Mignolet from PL & CL because he is not consistent and has had howlers just like Lovren without the personal problems. The fact Mignolet is consistently under scrutiny for god knows how long? shows that we need to try something different.
Karius has much better distribution and suits our play much better than laboured Mignolet anyhow! But Karius was a mess when he was playing in the EPL, remember the game we lost at Bournemouth. I think Klopp is helping to get confidence by playing him in the less physical CL
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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 |
Karius has been much better, honestly.
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 22,926
Liverpool Legend
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Liverpool Legend
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 22,926 |
Karius has been much better, honestly. You mean much better than Mignolet?
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Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 8,564
1st Team Squad
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OP
1st Team Squad
Joined: Aug 2011
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Better than he was previously. he was cack last year, but he's looked much more solid lately. I don't know if I've seen enough to say he is better than Migs yet, but I think he has a higher ceiling. Migs may be a slightly better shot stopper, but Karius has much better distribution and command of his area.
He's quick off his line, which makes me nervous sometimes, but he is a lot more decisive. I prefer that to Migs' hesitation and flapping.
I would like to see Karius in a more extended run of games to see if he can be the answer. If he is great, if not we need to buy a class keeper.
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 22,926
Liverpool Legend
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Liverpool Legend
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 22,926 |
Better than he was previously. he was cack last year, but he's looked much more solid lately. I don't know if I've seen enough to say he is better than Migs yet, but I think he has a higher ceiling. Migs may be a slightly better shot stopper, but Karius has much better distribution and command of his area.
He's quick off his line, which makes me nervous sometimes, but he is a lot more decisive. I prefer that to Migs' hesitation and flapping.
I would like to see Karius in a more extended run of games to see if he can be the answer. If he is great, if not we need to buy a class keeper. Of course he is better than what he was, that wouldn't have been too difficult. I think he struggled with the physical side of the EPL, this is why he was eased in through the CL. Mignolet is a better shot stopper and Karius is better with his feet. I am not too sure about his coming off the line as sometimes he messes it up, like in his last game when I think he ended taking Gomez out.
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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 |
Better than he was previously. he was cack last year, but he's looked much more solid lately. I don't know if I've seen enough to say he is better than Migs yet, but I think he has a higher ceiling. Migs may be a slightly better shot stopper, but Karius has much better distribution and command of his area.
He's quick off his line, which makes me nervous sometimes, but he is a lot more decisive. I prefer that to Migs' hesitation and flapping.
I would like to see Karius in a more extended run of games to see if he can be the answer. If he is great, if not we need to buy a class keeper. Of course he is better than what he was, that wouldn't have been too difficult. I think he struggled with the physical side of the EPL, this is why he was eased in through the CL. Mignolet is a better shot stopper and Karius is better with his feet. I am not too sure about his coming off the line as sometimes he messes it up, like in his last game when I think he ended taking Gomez out. Karius is better at commanding the area, which is one of our defense's biggest issues with Migs between the sticks. Sometimes he makes mistakes coming off his line, but it usually is the right decision. Hesitation will cause a problem if it's right or wrong. Say or go, and I can live with the consequences.
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