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Forget ‘normality’, Klopp is on the verge of something very special with Liverpool

Gareth Roberts |

June 6, 2019

JUST over three-and-a-half years ago, sharp, smiling and fresh-faced, Jurgen Klopp breezed into Anfield and proclaimed himself as “The Normal One.”

It was just one of a string of superbly delivered sound-bites during an opening press-conference performance that had hardened hacks beaming smiles back at the rangy German. Once the video of the conference hit the internet, and his words hit the papers, supporters were sold. Klopp was the man.

In the same opening salvo, Klopp spoke of delivering a trophy within four years. While so much of that first briefing in October 2015 was so good, those who had seen enough of football life in England – and much of the media that surrounds it – were left wondering. Could that be a statement he could live to regret?

Liverpool fans had heard about plans and projects before, on and off the pitch. Many in the media the same. And in an always-on, super-connected world where the old maxim that today’s headlines are tomorrow’s chip paper no longer applies, past proclamations can easily be held against you. Just ask Gerard Houllier.

Houllier did a lot to modernise Liverpool behind the scenes during his spell as manager at Anfield and brought back the UEFA Cup, the FA Cup and two League Cups to boot. But the “five-year-plan” to win the Premier League he announced on arrival was quickly used as a wet fish to slap him around the chops when it didn’t materialise and Liverpool’s grip on a decent rung on the league ladder began to falter.

“I think we are in year six of Houllier’s five-year-plan,” said Steve Morgan, a then major shareholder, who once launched a takeover bid for the club. It was Houllier’s bid to buy himself sometime when he first arrived at the club, an attempt to wrestle the ever-reaching arms of expectation into a manageable box for a while.

 

Arguably it worked. The lid was down for a while. But it certainly didn’t delay his departure when things started to unravel and he hadn’t delivered by the deadline. Minimal digging is required to underline the point for Klopp and his own potential sliding doors moment.

Rewind just a month, and as Manchester City marched on machine-like towards the Premier League title, The Reds trailed Barcelona 3-0 after the Champions League semi-final first leg in Catalonia.

The prospect of Liverpool ending the season empty-handed was very real then, and extending a trophy drought to seven years since the League Cup was lifted by Kenny Dalglish’s side in 2012 looked the most likely season outcome for The Reds.

You could almost hear the gleeful rubbing of hands. And so it began. I’ll spare the organisation some blushes, but one click-bait-peddling company posted a piece headlined “Time Running Out” before regurgitating Klopp’s quotes and even his accompanying joke from his first day in work in 2015.

Then Klopp laughed: “Please give us time to do the work but when I sit here in four years I think we may have one title. If not maybe [I’ll win] the next one in Switzerland. The clubs around Switzerland will be licking their lips at the prospect of Klopp coming at least,” concluded the piece published at the start of May.

Presumably, the writer does now wish it was chip paper. The European Champion is here to stay. Switzerland can put its tongue away. There’s a great enjoyment to be taken from offering two fingers to all those who have characterised Klopp as nothing more than a grinning cheerleader who “does good hugs”.

The same too, for those, who with achingly boring regularity, banged on about his record in finals. But there is a more serious point, too. In another reality where it’s Hugo Lloris and not Jordan Henderson lifting the European Cup aloft, the analysis like the above would have been wheeled out by the skip-load by now.

The four-year quote would be front and centre. The final failure record lit large. The spending charts would be out, the owner moaners back. And you’d begin to worry that, while any sane analysis would point to progress under Klopp, the drum banging could eventually prick the ears of the positivity at Anfield and Melwood.

Falling short by one point after amassing a 97 points total in the Premier League, coupled with back-to-back Champions League final defeats, would have been a tough-to-tackle low to lift the players from even for a champion motivator and lover of psychology like Klopp.

Instead, that’s a scenario now only of nightmares. Like everyone with a love of Liverpool, Klopp is able to sing, dance and enjoy the achievement of a sixth European Cup coming to gleam in the postcode of Liverpool 4.

Now, when they return to work, players and staff will file past a re-worked wall at the training ground that shows a 2019 European Cup. A collective triumph for them in the here and now – not just a ghost on the wall of what once was. That must surely push them to more. Who wouldn’t want another ride on that open-top bus?

From being so close to being knocked down by a pile of poison pens, Klopp is now being heralded at every turn. Rightly so. What we knew, they now know. And he’s got the cup to prove it.

Already the terrace geniuses that make the best of the flags and banners that adorn Liverpool’s Kop end will be hard at work to make sure The German’s name and image will live long alongside those of Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Rafa Benitez as magnificent men who brought Big Ears back home.

And, now, it’s less snide around hugs, grins and talk of a limited approach to something detailing an era closer to reality – one run by a manager that has adapted, listened, sought marginal gains, built a knowledge team and put Liverpool’s model of running a football club right up there among the best in the world.

Klopp has ensured his name will live on forever in Liverpool folklore, and within hours of the final whistle in Madrid talk arrived of attempts to extend his contract beyond 2022.

Again, rightly so. With the banter around his work back in its box, and the most glorious of trophies shining bright, there is no better time to tie him down if possible. The next step – to win again, to win more, to create a Liverpool legacy – suddenly doesn’t look as daunting as it once was for so long.

And that’s down to the man at the top – his methods, his manner, his decisions and the structure he has moulded. In LESS than four years.

"When I left Dortmund my last sentence maybe [was] it's not so important what people think when you come in it's much more important what people think when you leave, and please give us the time to work on it,” Klopp said when he arrived.

Far from time running out, Klopp has now brought the decision about his tenure back to his own control. The leader isn’t wobbling, the leader can’t be questioned. Instead, the leader is a legend.

Saturday ensured that when he leaves he will be remembered as such. Whatever happens from here on in, Jurgen Klopp won Liverpool’s sixth European Cup. Like a famous manager from Anfield past, he has made the people happy. And there's nothing normal about that.

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