Jurgen Klopp Sack Watch

Who gives a shit?

We've won 1 cup, in the QF's of two others, a point behind in the league with a game in hand and unbeaten since Oct. We're very much entitled to laugh.

Besides, they are Liverpool. As someone once said, Liverpool losing is either a silver lining or the icing on the cake.

Steady on old boy, we're still only at the Last 16 stage of the Europa! It has an extra round to the champioli league
 
When was the last time there was actually a heated debate between both camps in that thread? Probably the Hummels transfer, but even then anomosity was rather directed at the player than the clubs. There is actually a pretty high amount of respect between the camps on here (far more than on German boards which explains the high number of Germans on here). Especially the rise of RB Leipzig rather unified both camps as the majority of both can´t stand them and then there is of course the shared antipathy towards the HSV ;).

Compared to the discussions amongst EPL supporters (eventhough even in that regard the Caf is one of the best places to discuss due to good moderation), the climate there is downright civil.

Always been quite puzzled by this. I've tried to figure out if it is just a case of you Germans sticking together on a predominantly English based messageboard with admittedly a bit biased EPL fans, or if it actually isn't that much hostility between you Bayern fans and Dortmund fans. Two clubs in the EPL rivaling each other and going as much head to head like you two have done in the BL would sure lead to some more animosity between the fans. Especially if one of the clubs had a habit of poaching the other clubs best players.

Also quite unique how players can transfer between the two clubs without much fuzz. Players going from Barca to Real or the other way around isn't as unproblematic (Figo), or downright impossible (United - Liverpool).
 
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Always been quite puzzled by this. I've tried to figure out if it is just a case of you Germans sticking together on a predominantly English based messageboard with admittedly a bit biased EPL fans, or if it actually isn't that much hostility between you Bayern fans and Dortmund fans. Two clubs in the EPL rivaling each other and going as much head to head like you two have done in the BL would sure lead to some more animosity between the fans. Especially if one of the clubs had a habit of poaching the other clubs best players.

Also quite unique how players can transfer between the two clubs without much fuzz. Players going from Barca to Real or the other way around isn't as unproblematic (Figo), or downright impossible (United - Liverpool).

Oh, there is, especially in the times when the club´s officials were at each others throat. Just not on here. I believe this is mostly down to the nature of the posters and their reason to rather be on here than on German boards. The Caf funtions as some kind of of assylum from the trash of German boards. The people on here simply just want to discuss the actual football being played and given that the rivalry of both clubs is by now only on the pitch and neither the long history of United-Pool or an political side like Real-Barca this is also possible.

It would also take decades of actual competition between both clubs for Bayern to replace Schalke as Dortmund´s arch rival and the same is probably true vice versa.
 
Let's not turn this into a Bayern v Dortmund thread. I avoid the Bundlesliga and La Liga threads for a reason. :)
You're missing a lot of fun in the la liga thread. There's a meltdown practically every week :wenger:
 
Bravo on the new title. I would suggest Craig Shakespeare get the new name Pantomime Villain.
 
Again, we were playing brilliantly in 11/12, good enough to win the CL and overall on an excellent level. Schweinsteiger's injury in the CL group game against Napoli caused us temporarily a few problems but that shouldn't detract from the fact that we were playing quality football and were one of the best sides in Europe. The fact that we got even better in 12/13 doesn't change that, the points gap in the league to Dortmund doesn't change that either. We were great, Dortmund were even better in the league.

The rest of your post is just some weird way of interpreting stats to find proof for the silly notion that we weren't actually good when Klopp won the double with Dortmund, so that you can discredit his work.

You were better in 11/12 but weren't the finished article, then were the finished article in 12/13. Again, I'm not discrediting it, but Bayern absolutely were a team in transition when Klopp won with Dortmund, and as soon as that transition was over, Dortmund won feck all. It's as simple as that.

Don't bother, @Alex99 is the typical example of a guy on the internet throwing so much shit at the wall (as in, selectively googling for numbers) to hope enough sticks which will make his argument. I realized that when made up the "fact" that Dortmund apparently won the DFB Pokal before Klopp joined, an obvious case of wikipedia misreading, that wouldn't have happened to someone who followed the Bundesliga through these years.

I'm not throwing shit at a wall. I'm using actual facts whilst others, Balu included, have brought up things like Klopp's record in Europe which doesn't really extend much further than one game.

I'll admit the mistake on the cup win. I even looked it up to be sure and still ended up typing that they won it.

So true and so obvious. Still fascinating how many stupid conclusions someone can draw from those randomly found numbers. I mean, you've probably seen how bad we were in some of the years we didn't win the league in the last 25 years, yet he comes up with this gem about our 11/12 season:

Truely amazing.

Well it was. Even when you were finishing 3rd you were closer to the eventual winners than you were that season. In fact, you finished 6th or something back in the 90s and were still closer to the winners.

Dortmund started slowly, winning just 2 of their first 6 games, and losing 3 of them. But then they went on amazing unbeaten run for the remainder of the season, winning 23 from 28. Bayern however, stumbled after Schweinsteiger's injury at the beginning of November and didn't manage more than 3 wins in a row until mid March.

It's all relative. It was one of your worst title challenges because you weren't close to winning the title. It's a dramatic point, I'll admit that, but as I said, that season was one of the signifiers that the top teams in Germany were pulling away from those on the rung below, and then Bayern went on and pulled away from them too:

01/02: 1st to 9th = 20 points, 1st to 6th = 14 points, 1st to 3rd = 2 points, 1st to 2nd = 1 point
02/03: 1st to 9th = 30 points, 1st to 6th = 23 points, 1st to 3rd = 17 points, 1st to 2nd = 16 points
03/04: 1st to 9th = 30 points, 1st to 6th = 19 points, 1st to 3rd = 9 points, 1st to 2nd = 6 points
04/05: 1st to 9th = 29 points, 1st to 6th = 20 points, 1st to 3rd = 18 points, 1st to 2nd = 14 points
05/06: 1st to 9th = 32 points, 1st to 6th = 27 points, 1st to 3rd = 7 points, 1st to 2nd = 5 points
06/07: 1st to 9th = 26 points, 1st to 6th = 22 points, 1st to 3rd = 4 points, 1st to 2nd = 2 points
07/08: 1st to 9th = 30 points, 1st to 6th = 24 points, 1st to 3rd = 13 points, 1st to 2nd = 10 points
08/09: 1st to 9th = 20 points, 1st to 6th = 10 points, 1st to 3rd = 5 points, 1st to 2nd = 2 points
09/10: 1st to 9th = 23 points, 1st to 6th = 15 points, 1st to 3rd = 9 points, 1st to 2nd = 5 points
10/11: 1st to 9th = 31 points, 1st to 6th = 28 points, 1st to 3rd = 10 points, 1st to 2nd = 7 points
11/12: 1st to 9th = 39 points, 1st to 6th = 28 points, 1st to 3rd = 17 points, 1st to 2nd = 8 points
12/13: 1st to 9th = 46 points, 1st to 6th = 40 points, 1st to 3rd = 26 points, 1st to 2nd = 25 points
13/14: 1st to 9th = 46 points, 1st to 6th = 35 points, 1st to 3rd = 26 points, 1st to 2nd = 19 points
14/15: 1st to 9th = 36 points, 1st to 6th = 31 points, 1st to 3rd = 13 points, 1st to 2nd = 10 points
15/16: 1st to 9th = 45 points, 1st to 6th = 38 points, 1st to 3rd = 28 points, 1st to 2nd = 10 points

The ones in bold are the 5 highest differences in the last 15 seasons. You'll not that the next biggest gap between 1st and 2nd is Dortmund's 11/12 win. Again, it's relative. A title challenge is evaluated by how close to the title you can get, and Bayern didn't get close. Had they beat Dortmund to draw level on points with 5 games left then it might have been a different story, but as it was, they lost, drew against Mainz and ended up 8 points behind them. When the bar for Bayern is still finishing within 10 points when they come 4th, finishing 8 points off in 2nd hardly constitutes a good title challenge.

As you can blatantly see, since 11/12, the top has pulled away from the rest, and 11/12 was also essentially the end of the instability and transition at Bayern. They've handled managerial changes well of late because they've been replacing outgoing managers on good terms, not sacking them and hoping someone can fix the mess, as was happening prior to 10/11.
 
Who cares what Klopp did at Dortmund? He's doing shit now at LFC and it's funny as hell!
 
I think my point's been lost here amongst some laboured arguments. Essentially, Klopp's current struggles at Liverpool haven't really come as a surprise to me, because as far as I'm concerned, his success at Dortmund came about through a number of fortuitous circumstances that he'd be very lucky to find himself the benefactor of again. In brief, these were:

  • Having a number of cheap signings and players already at the club become very good, if just for a season, and also remain fairly free of injury (Gotze, Hummels, Lewandowski, Subotic, Bender, Gundogan, Kagawa, Sahin)
  • The dominant side in Germany going through a period of instability and transition
  • Teams not adapting quickly enough to Klopp's high-pressing and direct style
Additionally, once Bayern sorted themselves out, the players that had been very good went back to being okay/good, and teams started to adapt to Klopp's style, Dortmund never came close and in his final season ended up having a run so bad that they went half a season with just 4 wins.

Rodgers' time at Liverpool was almost a condensed version of Klopp's at Dortmund, just without the silverware to show for it. First season was about par for the course, in his second, a number of players stepped up (Sterling, Suarez, Sturridge, Coutinho, Henderson), the dominant side/sides had instability and transition (United, City & Chelsea), and teams didn't adapt to the high-pressing and direct style quickly enough and they almost won the league, then in his last season the dominant sides sorted themselves out, important players left or reverted back to the norm, and teams adapted to the style of play, and Liverpool didn't come close.

Regardless of what Liverpool fans try and say, Klopp was brought in last season to make an instant impact to their league form, and ended up finishing 8th, their joint worst Premier League finish. The excuse was the two failed cup runs, but that made it 5 lost finals in 4 seasons for him. People were expecting a resurgent side this season, and it seemed they'd got that with Liverpool being 2nd, 5 points off 1st after 20 games. 6 games later and they're 5th, 14 points off top, and now just 1 clear of United in 6th who have a game in hand on them and have been unbeaten in the league since October, and lost just once in all competitions. Liverpool have won just 1 of their last 7 league games, and just 2 of their last 12 in all competitions, losing 6 of them, and that other win was a now pointless cup win in a replay against League Two Plymouth.

Liverpool fans roundly laughed at anyone for suggesting that they would struggle with fixture congestion and overreliance on a small squad with Klopp's high-intensity style, and they were also mocked for suggesting that their defense would be their undoing. Yet here we are, with Liverpool struggling immensely after the annual, winter fixture congestion, having shipped more goals than any side in the top 8, and bemoaning their lack of squad strength.

You can disagree with my assessment of that all you want, but telling me about a mythical European record, the emotions of a season, or talking nonsense about Bayern being at their storming best during his Dortmund tenure won't make me change my mind. He did very well to capitalise on the situation he found himself in, and lesser managers would have bottled it, but I've not seen anything to suggest that he would be able to to do the same elsewhere without a similar turn of luck.
 
@Alex99 i think you're being harsh on his achievements at Dortmund. Their record from 2002 (their last pre-Klopp league title) to 2011 (Klopp's first title) was mediocre. Within that period they finished 3rd, 6th, 7th, 7th, 9th, 13th, 6th and 5th (with the last two being under Klopp's management). They won nothing within that period and were in the wilderness, making three appearances in European competition. If you want to go further back then from the 97-98 season to 09-10 they won one league title and an intercontinental cup.

Following Klopp becoming their manager in 2008 Dortmund won three major trophies and finished in the top two four times. Your argument that he won the league when Bayern were struggling can be turned around by saying that he was unlucky to come up against a treble winning side in 12-13 and then Guardiola the following season, who absolutely dominated the Bundesliga. Klopp was also up against a Bayern Munich that has dominated German football over a very long period, which stretches back for decades. The fact that he was able to win back to back league titles against the Bayern monopoly was very impressive in my opinion. Even more so when you consider Bayern's superior resources.

Since Klopp's arrival at Dortmund in 2008 they've been consistently playing European football, competing for trophies and are known for playing good football. I think he raised the bar for the club after several years of stagnation and they're in a much better position now, compared to where they were prior to his arrival.

You might be right about how things go/are going for him at Liverpool, but I think your assessment of his time at Dortmund is harsh.
 
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Some very interesting points brought out by a lot of posters here about Klopp's work with Dortmund as compared to the results we're seeing with Liverpool.

It looks like he hasn't changed the way his teams play but I wonder if the winter break and the 18 teams in Bundesliga helped his players a little.

With Liverpool, not only has he come up against a lot of teams that sit back and make it hard to break them down (aka figured out his tactics), he also need to contend with fixture congestion and the physical nature of the league.

I believe he is the "victim" of his own "hype" around his playing style and it will be very difficult for him to change.

Without any silverware, I'm not sure how long FSG or Liverpool fans will continue to back him.
 
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Has this been mentioned yet?

Jurgen Klopp's win percentage at Liverpool - 48.3%
David Moyes' win percentage at Man Utd - 52.9%

Moyes took over a team of champions (even though past their peak in most cases) while Klopp took over a bunch of average players for which the Scousers overpaid massively..

Not a good comparison at all in my opinion.
 
Another thing I heard on a radio show yesterday was someone saying he just needs to start finding bargains who become top class players like he did at Dortmund.

Thing is, Dortmund are still doing this without him there and this hasn't yet happened at Liverpool. Is it unreasonable to wonder whether persons other than Klopp were actually responsible for unearthing these talents at Dortmund?
 
Another thing I heard on a radio show yesterday was someone saying he just needs to start finding bargains who become top class players like he did at Dortmund.

Thing is, Dortmund are still doing this without him there and this hasn't yet happened at Liverpool. Is it unreasonable to wonder whether persons other than Klopp were actually responsible for unearthing these talents at Dortmund?

I think a big credit for Dortmunds recruitment in the past years has to go to Zorc (their Manager). He just seems to find the right people at the right time for a very good price. Except Immobile, Schürrle, Shinji & Sahin (after coming back) and maybe Götze (so far - mainly due to his illness and injury problems) there haven't been many expensive fails. However, great talents have been attracted at good value especially in today's market.
 
I've said this before, possibly in this thread, but their support has had a problem since Benitez was in charge. Hodgson notwithstanding, they deify their managers before they've even done anything for them. It's one thing to support a new manager, but they go to extremes and it means any rational criticism of whoever's in charge is drowned out by the hordes screaming about how the glory days are just around the corner.

Benitez, despite doing bugger all for the best part of 5 years was lauded as the best manager in the world, and treated as a martyr that had fallen on his sword to oust the pernicious owners. Hodgson got the immediate backlash to that and was unfortunate in the timing of when he got the job, and after being given no money to spend on improving a mid-table squad was sacked and replaced with Dalglish, and thus the deification started again. The King had returned to take Liverpool back to the top. That didn't quite pan out so the brightest and best young manager in world football was brought in with fresh ideas and a new outlook, but that didn't work either, so now they're with Klopp, who again is the world's best manager, motivator and all-round top guy, and that'll last until the next poor sod takes the job and he's put on a pedestal.

They have done that since Shankly.
 
Moyes took over a team of champions (even though past their peak in most cases) while Klopp took over a bunch of average players for which the Scousers overpaid massively..

Not a good comparison at all in my opinion.

Well it's more a jokey comparison to be honest. But interesting nonetheless considering they have the same aspirations as us
 
I think a big credit for Dortmunds recruitment in the past years has to go to Zorc (their Manager). He just seems to find the right people at the right time for a very good price. Except Immobile, Schürrle, Shinji & Sahin (after coming back) and maybe Götze (so far - mainly due to his illness and injury problems) there haven't been many expensive fails. However, great talents have been attracted at good value especially in today's market.

I didn't particularly like it when Klopp got the Liverpool job. I thought they were stuck with taken gambles on unproven managers.

One of the things I clung two when they got him was that somebody else behind the scenes was doing all the scouting and recommending signings. Looks like it was a big factor. Although I remember when I raised the issue here the Klopp fanboys said it wasn't the case.
 
Been discussing our current plight with a few other Liverpool fans. A couple of them felt that just being able to concentrate on the league would be a big advantage in our push for a top 4 spot. I disagreed on the basis that players would much rather play competitive games than work on the training ground. Winning games gives you a far bigger incentive, & far greater confidence, than sweating it out & brooding about your last shit performance behind the closed doors of the gym & training pitches. Going 16 days between matches didn't help us one jot on Monday night. Klopp really has his work cut out to turn this around now. Victory on Saturday against Arsenal is a must (they themselves will have gone a while since they last played). But the biggest challenge facing our German manager is trying to address this mentality problem that so obviously exists within the playing squad. Look & play like world-beaters against the better sides who generally try to play football. Look like a bunch of nivea loving pussies when up against teams that get in their silky soft, smooth-skinned faces.
 
But the biggest challenge facing our German manager is trying to address this mentality problem that so obviously exists within the playing squad. Look & play like world-beaters against the better sides who generally try to play football. Look like a bunch of nivea loving pussies when up against teams that get in their silky soft, smooth-skinned faces.
Mentality comes from the top. Your club is run by drunken monkeys. That's the biggest problem of all
 
I didn't particularly like it when Klopp got the Liverpool job. I thought they were stuck with taken gambles on unproven managers.

One of the things I clung two when they got him was that somebody else behind the scenes was doing all the scouting and recommending signings. Looks like it was a big factor. Although I remember when I raised the issue here the Klopp fanboys said it wasn't the case.

That was the case with Rodgers too when he was their darling. All good transfers were his, and all bad ones were the mystical transfer committee's. There have already been similar murmurings with Klopp and the idea that he just needs to get his players in.
 
Moyes took over a team of champions (even though past their peak in most cases) while Klopp took over a bunch of average players for which the Scousers overpaid massively..

Not a good comparison at all in my opinion.

Yes, but Jurgen was lauded as a genius in football, while Moyes....was...well...Moyes
 
I dont really get this ridicule of comparing Brenton and Klopp? They had an absolute insane season under Rodgers, so to think that their records are so close isnt really 'hilarious' is it?
 
One of the things I clung two when they got him was that somebody else behind the scenes was doing all the scouting and recommending signings. Looks like it was a big factor. Although I remember when I raised the issue here the Klopp fanboys said it wasn't the case.
All Dortmund fans on the Caf told that it wasn't down to Klopp, that the club had an excellent scouting system and that Klopp didn't even had the final say. All final decisions regarding transfers were done together by Klopp, Zorc and Watzke while there was an excellent scouting system working in the background providing suggestions. It's similar to how almost all Bundesliga clubs are run and it made no sense to give Klopp more power at Liverpool when it comes to transfers than he had at Dortmund. I've no clue who actually makes the final decisions nowadays at Liverpool, but having a transfer committee isn't a problem in itself. If the people in the committee have a common goal, trust each others knowledge and bring different input to the table, it can be beneficial to the club compared to one man deciding everything on his own.
 
I dont really get this ridicule of comparing Brenton and Klopp? They had an absolute insane season under Rodgers, so to think that their records are so close isnt really 'hilarious' is it?

I've been thinking the same. I think Rodgers got a bit of a raw deal with his dismissal, but comparing the points totals after x amount of games is a bit weird because at this stage of his Liverpool career Rodgers was in the midst of a freak, one-off title challenge.
 
I dont really get this ridicule of comparing Brenton and Klopp? They had an absolute insane season under Rodgers, so to think that their records are so close isnt really 'hilarious' is it?

Finished 7th, 28 points behind United in his first season. Only the first 17 games of that insane season are counting so far. Brenton will likely be lightyears ahead by the end of the season.
 
I've been thinking the same. I think Rodgers got a bit of a raw deal with his dismissal, but comparing the points totals after x amount of games is a bit weird because at this stage of his Liverpool career Rodgers was in the midst of a freak, one-off title challenge.
You could go back two months and many thought Liverpool were serious title challengers again. Obviously, ignoring the fact that the top teams would have a break from Europe and catch up a pretty average side.
 
You could go back two months and many thought Liverpool were serious title challengers again. Obviously, ignoring the fact that the top teams would have a break from Europe and catch up a pretty average side.

Yes but the point there is that they actually were in 2013/14 and aren't now. There's a number of comparisons going around that show Rodgers to be doing better than Klopp based on points attained after x amount of games. It's a useless comparison anyway because both stretch past a single season, but made more useless by the fact that the title challenge Rodgers found himself in wasn't representative his general performance.
 
To be fair, I think most would agree that if Klopp's Liverpool had Suarez in it, they really would be likely very serious challengers for the title. Rodgers got incredibly lucky in having Suarez.
 
To be fair, I think most would agree that if Klopp's Liverpool had Suarez in it, they really would be likely very serious challengers for the title. Rodgers got incredibly lucky in having Suarez.

It's not luck.