Liverpool manager has a “extra edge” going into the new season as ambitious goals are stated.
Those who believe Jurgen Klopp’s legendary passion has been dampened by Liverpool’s challenging season are mistaken. Very, very wrong indeed.
During the team’s stay near the tranquil town of Donaueschingen in southern Germany, there has been no sign of the Reds coach moping around the training camp, and he was enthusiastically signing autographs and posing for pictures after Wednesday’s 4-2 opening friendly triumph over Karlsruhe SC.
The fact that the game occurred only hours after Jordan Henderson followed Fabinho in drawing closer to a move to Saudi Arabia, further disrupting preparations for the upcoming season, didn’t detract from Klopp’s overall good feeling.
The Liverpool boss, then, is clearly determined to make amends for a disastrous previous season.
I can’t believe I’ve been doing this job for ages and so far my excitement hasn’t stopped,” says Klopp. “I’m really happy being here. I enjoyed the holiday but when I went on the plane to go back to Liverpool, I thought ‘it starts again’. It was really good. It’s about the game – if you love the game, you want to watch it, you want to talk about.
“And yes, I want to put things right. That gives me the extra edge as well. The fever, the power, the excitement is bigger when last season was not great. That’s still what we have and I will make sure we keep that for the full season. I will remind them (the players) that we agreed on doing more and more and more and more than anybody and I’m pretty sure we will have a good chance of playing a pretty good season.”
While Klopp wants Liverpool to once again embrace becoming one of the most difficult teams to play against – they lost 14 games in all competitions last term compared to just four the previous season – he is urging improvement across the board. Standards are being set high. “I want us to be a lot,” he says. “I would really love to be that team where everybody goes ‘oh God, Liverpool’. But I want us to be a possession team, a high-press team, specialists in those things. Best in the world for counter-press, best in deep defending, best in midfield press, best in set-pieces offensively and defensively. We are trying to raise the bar again and again and again.
There has been a lot of change over the years. Of course, we have lost experienced players (this summer) but it opens the door for others. That’s how it is. Everybody wants a change and a massive development or overhaul or how you want to call it, but I’m 100% sure we have the boys to run through the open door. If you can create some stability with the quality we have then we have a good chance to win football games.”
Klopp continues, “Everything begins with an idea.” An notion of how we want to play, a plan for how we want to respond, a plan for how we want to strike back, and a plan for how we will improve. We’ve pretty much done the headline for this preseason; we told the boys that we have to perform better, and better always starts with more. We go above and above. This is what we do here.
“You could tell right away from the first day of training that the boys mean business.” They were very excited about this. Even though the holiday was short for some – and long enough for others – you could see the fire in their eyes when they arrived. It was fantastic. I couldn’t extinguish it with all of the sessions we’d had. It’s still there, which is excellent.”
Liverpool began their comeback with an 11-game unbeaten streak at the close of last season, which gave momentum for the summer and introduced a new formation, which was utilized again for the inaugural friendly.
“We obviously had a very average season, with a lot of problems,” Klopp admits on the ‘We Are Liverpool’ podcast. I like how we organized them. Finally, I would have liked to have qualified for the Champions League. But everything is OK now.
“Sometimes you need a good knock to realize, ‘ah, that was the problem.'” Last year, we really took a beating, in my opinion. I definitely received one, and I’m on fire (right now), and the players got one as well. So far, I’m really pleased with the answer.”
The real work, however, has only just begun for Klopp and his team. The countdown to the opening of Stamford Bridge on August 13th continues.
