When flux is the natural mode of modern football, there is something comfortingly old-fashioned about Jurgen Klopp. It’s not just that his first two stints as a manager each lasted seven years; it’s the way he conducts himself, the way Liverpool are so obviously a club being built to his image, the way there is a real sense that the teenagers being brought to the club now might end up playing under Klopp when they break into the first team.
The opposite to Klopp is Jose Mourinho, a manager who lives for the moment and who, famously, always sees his coaching roles disintegrate in the third year. There was a telling moment during his punditry on Chelsea’s defeat to Manchester United on Sunday when he suggested that by picking Tammy Abraham and Mason Mount, Frank Lampard was giving
himself an excuse: he could say that he selecting young players and that immediately offered some mitigation for a potential defeat.
Jose Mourinho on Chelsea's Rising Stars:
"Look at the performance of Mason Mount, of Tammy Abraham, Christensen even, for matches of this dimension you need a little bit more." #CFC »» #KTBFFH pic.twitter.com/GDjCIN8PrF
— Mwas Mchelsea ™ (@MwasMchelsea) August 11, 2019
The idea of self-sabotage as a psychological security blanket isn’t new. In his later years at Nottingham Forest, as Brian Clough insisted on picking nice young men with nice haircuts who played nice passing football, he was making an obvious break with the past when his team contained such difficult characters as Kenny Burns, Larry Lloyd and John Robertson.
But he was also effectively setting up a separate value system: he could succeed on his own terms, those of niceness, and that, up to a point, obviated the need to actually win football matches and challenge for the title. In a less pronounced way, Arsene Wenger can be regarded as having gone through a similar process in his later years at Arsenal. (Both, of course, it may legitimately be argued were operating under financial constraints that made it impossible for them to compete at the very top of the table.)
But still, it was striking to hear a manager admit the political dimension of defeat so nakedly, the implication being that when Mourinho picked a side it was partly to win a game, and partly with a view to what the reaction maybe if he did not win it. That’s the aspect of Mourinho highlighted by the unnamed Gestifute employee quoted in Diego Torres’s book when David Moyes got the Manchester United job ahead of him, the sense that Mourinho will always act in his own best interests rather than the club’s.
⚽️ Welcome to Sarri Ball…#Chelsea #CFC #ARSCHE pic.twitter.com/hmlcUBk6vh
— Unibet (@unibet) January 19, 2019
To an extent, that attitude is reasonable enough. Clubs are rarely loyal to their managers so why should the manager consider what might be going on three or four years down the line when he’s unlikely to be at the club? But that’s what makes the Klopp situation so heartening. He is not thinking in terms of one year in the job, or four years in the job, but if an indefinite period in the job. And when that happens, the interests of the manager and the club align.
Maurizio Sarri last season seemed notably reluctant to give game time to Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Callum Hudson-Odoi. That may have been the result of the habitual Italian distrust of youth and it may have been because he felt they needed more tactical education, but it’s hardly surprising given the regularity with which Chelsea managers have been sacked under Roman Abramovich that a succession of incumbents have been reluctant to take a risk on untried players.
What. A. Feeling. #YNWA pic.twitter.com/CoqUuGEHts
— Trent Arnold (@trentaa98) June 2, 2019
There’s none of that caution at Anfield. If there had been Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joe Gomez might never have got their chance (or at least such an extended chance; Gomez played his first five league games under Brendan Rodgers). And that, in turn, creates a virtuous circle. If young players believe they will get a chance, Liverpool becomes an increasingly attractive prospect.
All of which makes you wonder why more clubs don’t seek to find their own Klopp and look to build a dynasty rather than going through the sort of turmoil that has left, to take only the most obvious example, Manchester United with such a hotch-potch of a squad. Perhaps the truth is that there just aren’t many as good as Klopp, somebody who has not merely obviously improved the squad and the style of play but had the charisma to make sure faith remained strong through almost four years without a trophy. As the Super Cup was this week added to the Champions League, that faith has been very much vindicated.
