WHETHER it’s “monsters” or “giants”, and whether there is a swear word thrown in for good measure or not, by now, you know: Jurgen Klopp reckons the collective mentality of his Liverpool squad is second to none.
Victory over Southampton at the weekend was just the latest celebration. “The mentality giants are in town – that was my headline,” said Klopp.
On the back of a late, great, sweat-soaked night in Istanbul, including extra-time and the nervous energy expended in a penalty shoot-out, a patched-up Liverpool side featuring a new goalkeeper who had been two-footed by a fan midweek, prevailed in the Premier League. Again.
The excuses were shouted loud before a ball was kicked: Liverpool had been on a 3,500-mile trip to Turkey while Southampton had rested up for a week. It had been a toil to win on the south coast only a few months earlier. Then there was the goalkeeper situation. Etcetera and so on.
Pressure is working down the pit. Pressure is having no work at all. Pressure is trying to escape relegation on 50 shillings a week. Pressure is not the European Cup or the Championship or the Cup final. That’s the reward.
— Legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly pic.twitter.com/G5qOuDamyy
— (@josemariapuerta) March 8, 2019
Bill Shankly famously said: “Pressure is working down the pit. Pressure is having no work at all. Pressure is trying to escape relegation on 50 shillings a week.”
Nevertheless, the modern world does its level best to pile as much pressure on footballers at the top level week after week. Good job nobody who plays for Liverpool seems to listen these days.
It’s a pattern that has been repeated over and over. In April, as The relentless Reds continued to hare after a record points total in the Premier League, it was again at Southampton, where Liverpool triumphed 3-1 after falling behind to a Shane Long goal, that Klopp called his side “a fucking bunch of mentality monsters”.
Just a few weeks on – unbelievably, inconceivably, and against all the odds – Liverpool battered Barcelona 4-0 in the Champions League at Anfield. “These boys are fucking mentality giants,” boomed Klopp into the lens of a TV camera as a wide-eyed reporter looked on. From day one, it has been the mantra of Klopp: it’s all in the mind. Because it’s all inside.
It’s why, only a month into his Anfield reign in November 2015, he turned on those that upped and left their Anfield seats as Crystal Palace scored an 82nd-minute goal that gave Klopp his first taste of defeat as Liverpool manager.
Liverpool 4-0 Barcelona. pic.twitter.com/WSmlONhWGI
— – (@VintageSalah) August 14, 2019
“If we learn, we decide how strong we are, how good we are, how awake we are and how tired we are,” he said then.
“After the goal on 82 minutes, with 12 minutes to go, I saw many people leaving the stadium. I felt pretty alone at this moment. We decide when it is over. Between 82 and 94 [minutes] you can make eight goals if you like.”
Three years and nine months on, the mark of Klopp is everywhere you look. The weak, the wary and the worried are rarely allowed to have their say. Last week, before the Super Cup final, Sadio Mane repeated his manager’s words of 2015: “Fitness, tiredness, is in here,” he said, tapping the side of his head. “For a long time now I’ve never had a break…for seven years I’ve never had a holiday longer than 20 days.”
From there, the forward, who is now firmly in the £100million bracket of world stars, has scored three goals and assisted another.
Sadio Mané has scored 1⃣5⃣ Premier League goals in 2019 – more than any other player. pic.twitter.com/5GEhuyBpd9
— Anfield Watch (@AnfieldWatch) August 21, 2019
Just over a month ago, Mane was playing 90 minutes for Senegal in the Africa Cup of Nations final in Cairo. That was his sixth match of the summer tournament. He played the full match in each of his appearances and one game, the semi-final against Tunisia, went to extra time.
He should be tired, they said. He will start slow, they said. No one told Mane. If they did he wasn’t listening. Instead, the Senegal superstar was Liverpool’s man of the match at Southampton. Not only scoring and assisting goals but also forever a willing runner, chasing down defenders, working defensively and generally making a nuisance of himself.
It’s not just Mane though. And it’s not just the start of this season or the back end of last.
“We decide when we are tired, nobody else,” Klopp again repeated on Saturday. And if further evidence of his words hitting home are required, then a glance at Liverpool’s goal times in the Premier League last season provides it.
In the final 15 minutes of Premier League matches last season, Liverpool scored 25 goals, conceding only five. No side in the league, not even eventual Champions Manchester City, scored more in that segment of games in 2018-19.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, a man who himself has just hurdled the mental barrier of returning from a long-term injury, said: “Mentally, this group of players is top drawer.
“The manager is one of the most mentally persistent managers out there, for sure, he keeps us going. We know what the demands are on each other. And I think that has grown in the team, there are more and more leaders coming out of this side – not just Hendo (Jordan Henderson), Millie (James Milner), Virg (Virgil van Dijk). Everyone is starting to take responsibility for what they need to do on and off the ball.”
Liverpool have equalled the club’s record of straight wins.
11 games in a row pic.twitter.com/4UYkQpiH2K— Kop-Ice (@kopice86) August 22, 2019
This group of Liverpool players under Klopp is obsessively in the habit of working hard, of digging in, of winning games late, and of finding victory anyway anyhow anywhere. Saturday’s at Southampton was an 11th straight league win – equalling the club’s best run of the Premier League era and making it won 32, drawn seven and lost one in Liverpool’s last 40 top-flight games.
James Clear, an author who writes about breaking bad habits and building good ones, wrote: “When you dedicate yourself to showing up each day and focusing on the habits that form a better identity, that's when you learn and develop.”
It’s exactly what Klopp has done in his time in charge – and why by his mentality giants will keep on walking tall.
