KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum What is Plan B?

Don't say 'a rapper'.

People often criticise Klopp for having no 'plan B' so I'm genuinely curious as to what people mean by a plan B.

- A change in players/subs when 'plan a' players aren't working?

- A change in tactics when 'plan a' tactics aren't working?

My stance is that Klopp is doing a very good job with the resources he has. People said we shouldn't sign aubameyang because Firmino starts. If that's the case, who do we bring off the bench to implement plan B? We simply don't have the resources for an array of playing staff capable of utilising different strengths, and a squad full of top players. Klopp has to buy players who fit into his philosophy, he has to believe in it 100% and pass that faith on to this players.

Alternatively, if people mean using 2 completely different styles and adopting them during the same game, what other managers are capable of employing widly different tactics in this way?
Pep has a similar style, but much better resources. Jose has a different style, which is yeilding slightly better results but again, much better resources (under-performing then?). Wenger has one style and is paying the price for stagnating. Big Sam has.... moving on.

Looking forward to genuine answers, and also comparing us with West Brom and Stoke.

It's the plan you turn to if Plan A isn't working.

I don't think there is a plan B, and I think there will ever be a plan B (not in terms of sticking a big tall guy in the box).

Klopp has got an extremely good plan A, he believes that his plan A will guarantee a win or draw in say 90% of matches. Now this isn't quite working yet. He wants to get 12/13 "Klopp" players in the squad (hence no panic buys) and then really unleash plan A.

Obviously when we come up against park the bus teams we need the players to really get wide and stretch the play and be more patient in the build up. We have seen City do this throughout the season and our players need to learn how to do this as well.

Klopp eluded to it (width) in his post match interview, I'm not certain the players were quite getting to grips with it. On top of that I thought the urgency levels were dire, the game annoyed me especially because I can tell after the first 15 minutes when we are not at the races.

Also a thought that crossed my head whilst watching the game was remembering the game against Sevilla in the CL. Look how hard they fought to keep their unbeaten run going against us, now look back at the Swansea game and see how easily we gave it up.

I think with Klopp there is no alternative, he believes in his Plan A method, he would rather lose playing with that than change his system.

In any case he doesn't have the players to change his system. One example is Giroud for Arsenal, he offers something different when teams are parking the bus and has scored a few headers. We have very good wingers who never cross and in any case we don't have strikers who would beat defenders to head the ball. Klopp always had that type of player at Dortmund like Lewandowski and then Aubameyang

For the last ten minutes against Swansea I'd have thrown Matip and Van Dijk up front and just launched balls into the Swansea box. Salah , Mane and Firminio were not very effective against a 1-10-0-0 formation so that could be a plan b for us.

My biggest concern is that when certain players clearly are underperforming there's no reaction from Klopp. Not soon enough anyway.

Gomez and Wijnaldum were both passengers just slowing the game down. We didn't need them for defensive duty either.

Why didn't Klopp think of replacing Wij with Lallana until minute 73?

Why didn't Klopp realise we needed width also on the right hand flank and choose TAA instead of the bad choice Gomez? The latter is always playing as a third cb, and gives the ball back to Matip whenever he receives a pass. Almost never goes past the halfway line either.

Seing those two players replaced by TAA and Lallana (earlier) would have changed the execution of the game plan tremendously.

Absolutely true. With the exception of wee Andy, our lads are just too timid to run the ball wide down the line to the corner flag. And also the one dimensional "plan A" has been that we had no solidarity at centre back/s and no dynamic leader in front of them.

Plan B now would be to make a plan B.

Maybe he doesn't need a plan B then, just better players to fit into his plan A.

Giroud's an awesome player to have sat on the bench, though it's keeping players like that happy.
Crouch? Not the worst point he's ever made but I doubt Klopp would admit flaws in his tactics by bringing him on for ten mins every time we're struggling. We've scored plenty of goals in the last ten this season against teams we were struggling against, so that would mean sacrificing those goals to launch balls into the box?

Sounds like even top managers stick to one plan, then maybe have better options off the bench to change the way the opposition has to defend.