Jurgen Klopp might be the unluckiest manager Liverpool have ever had.
- Published prior to Liverpool's 1-0 win over Everton
One Premier League title (without fans in the stadium to enjoy it) just doesn’t seem a fair return for an eight-year spell that included hauls of 99, 97 and 92 points, while his three Champions League finals included two of the most unfortunate defeats the competition has ever seen: the Loris Karius concussion of 2018 and the 1-0 defeat to Real Madrid in 2022 when Liverpool had 22 shots to Real’s four.
To top it off, Klopp then decided to step down at the end of last season, unbeknown to him at exactly the moment Manchester City were due an off-year. He was about to win the war and had just finished rebuilding the team when fatigue hit him too hard to carry on. Had he continued just one more year, the 2024/25 title would surely be his.
Because there is no doubt this is his title-winning Liverpool team. For all the talk of Arne Slot introducing some calm and composure, and despite some minor tweaks like moving Ryan Gravenberch into a number six role, this is the squad Klopp built and it’s playing – by and large – the tactics he introduced.
History will certainly remember it that way; will remember 2024/25 as the final act of the Klopp era, when a title and bus-top parade through the streets of Liverpool belonged almost as much to Klopp as to Slot. Indeed, in years to come this summer will come to mark the end of the Klopp-Guardiola years, when two iconic teams dominated a seven-year period of English football.
Manchester City are due a major revamp but more importantly may be in an entirely new post-115 charges phase of existence.
Liverpool will make their first Slot signings and may be trying to replace Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, and Mohamed Salah.
It must feel strange to see grey clouds on the horizon before the 2024/25 title is even sewn up, but there is no avoiding them. Slot’s win this year already feels like a slight anomaly; a victory belonging to another time.
That sense has only grown over the last few weeks as Liverpool’s form begins to wane. Stretching back to the FA Cup defeat at Plymouth, Liverpool have won just five of a 10-game sequence, crashing out of three different tournaments in that time.
The football has slowed, the edges have frayed. Salah has failed to provide a goal or assist in four of his last five matches prior to the Merseyside Derby (the only exception being a brace against bottom club Southampton), exposing Liverpool’s over-reliance upon his genius this season.
Salah is responsible for 44 of their 69 league goals (64%) and, incredibly, if only Salah’s goals and assists counted Liverpool would still have 50 Premier League points this season.
Of course, Liverpool’s slight decline might be an inevitable dip of the sort that happens to every champion at some stage. Or it might signify a long-term shift made worse by looming high-profile departures.
It leaves the impression that the real work for Slot begins this summer; that his debut season in English football was a bonus, belonging to another time – and perhaps even to another manager.
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