Since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson, the Premier League has been crying out for a larger than life person to replace him.
Not necessarily another dour Scot from Glasgow, after all, England’s top division has probably seen more than enough of them. The likes of Bill Shankly, Matt Busby, Billy McNeill, Tommy Docherty, Kenny Dalglish, Alex McLeish and now Alex Neil to name but a few of the more successful ones, have all managed clubs in the English league.
No, what was required was a character the stellar opposite. Somebody with loads of personality, lots of get-up-and-go, a witty riposte and a sharp tongue when required. Could these traits possibly be Germanic?
It’s very doubtful as we all know the Germans! Basically, they are Glaswegians with a strange accent, dour and uncompromising, get on with the job very successfully and with the minimum of fuss. But wait! There is one who fits the bill, one who has just taken over at Liverpool and is throwing his heart and soul into learning scouse. Jurgen Klopp is what everybody has been waiting for.
A manager who, naively, thinks that football is only a game, bless him. Wait until he has played Everton, Arsenal, Chelsea, United and City a couple of times. He will soon realise that it is, as Bill Shankly once said, more important than life or death.
Presently, Herr Klopp is busy trying, (and largely succeeding), to turn a bunch of underachieving, overpaid failures, commonly known as Liverpool’s first team, into title contenders. He is trying to do this without the aid of a safety net, which doesn’t arrive until January in the form of the transfer window.
What he needs during that window will depend greatly on the performance of the players he currently oversees. Should he have a replacement ready for Sturridge, or does he already have one in Origi, Benteke or Ings? Does he need to strengthen the midfield or the defence? How about a new goalkeeper?
He will answer all these questions by his actions in January, but I do think he has his eye on a couple of players at least, who will improve Liverpool and push them into contention.
This year Leicester City appear to be the only team who actually want to win the Premier League, and still Claudio Ranieri is denying all knowledge of that desire. The wily old dog thinks he’s taking the pressure off his players by saying that they won’t win the league, the players probably think he means they are not good enough. Whichever is the case, expect Leicester to keep giving it their all until they start to fade in January.
So, do Liverpool have what it takes to win the Premier League this season? The short answer is, no, they don’t. They are, however, only a couple of players short of being a team who could put together a consistent run. If Klopp gets it right in January expect them to be a threat to the top three.
If you take a glance at the picture above this article you will see the three contenders along with Klopp, (Jose Mourinho is just making a guest appearance, standing in for Claudio Ranieri who was out eating pizza with his team!).
In the photo, Klopp is out front with the others trailing in his wake. This is obviously a site Liverpool fans would like to see repeated at the end of the season.
Having come so close to winning it before when Brendan Rodgers looked like a good manager because he had Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge scoring lots of goals, most commentators were coming up with the old cliche, “they’ll never have a better chance of winning it than this.” As usual this is, as our American cousins would say, a load of baloney.
The bottom line is that, with Klopp in charge, there is every liklihood that they will have a better chance of winning it than that. Especially when he is a fully fledged scouser and fully understands the meaning of terms such as, “dey do dat dere don’t dey?”
Good luck to him, he deserves it.
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 