Klopp Confirmed Liverpool Manager

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The debate in this thread led me to check the record for Dortmund last season and even though I knew that it had been bad but I was shocked by just how bad it was. I know they ended up getting 7th place but they ended the season with 46 points from 34 games (13 wins, 7draws and 14 losses), now whichever way you look at it that is staggeringly bad for a top class manager.
 
Klopp is a great appointment. There's seriously no way to convince yourselves otherwise.

Track record of success + exciting football + ability to build teams + charismatic + ability to spot players + ability to motivate players.

He's absolutely brilliant. Liverpool will be getting one of the top managers in world football.

Sadly I think you're spot on.
 
The debate in this thread led me to check the record for Dortmund last season and even though I knew that it had been bad but I was shocked by just how bad it was. I know they ended up getting 7th place but they ended the season with 46 points from 34 games (13 wins, 7draws and 14 losses), now whichever way you look at it that is staggeringly bad for a top class manager.

That 7th Tho #Liverpool
 
Klopp will be given an abundance of time but no idea how much money.
Klopp has had some great seasons and some not so great seasons but he's joining a new club in a new league so there's absolutely no knowing how he'll get on. He has the potential to be an incredible manager for us and I can't wait to see what happens under him.
 
The debate in this thread led me to check the record for Dortmund last season and even though I knew that it had been bad but I was shocked by just how bad it was. I know they ended up getting 7th place but they ended the season with 46 points from 34 games (13 wins, 7draws and 14 losses), now whichever way you look at it that is staggeringly bad for a top class manager.

They played rather good football though. Just couldn't hit the goal, it was laughable sometimes. They perfomed better then the table suggests.
 
Klopp will be given an abundance of time but no idea how much money.
Klopp has had some great seasons and some not so great seasons but he's joining a new club in a new league so there's absolutely no knowing how he'll get on. He has the potential to be an incredible manager for us and I can't wait to see what happens under him.

One bad season and you are in serious trouble these days no matter who you manage in the PL. Rodgers was the second longest serving manager in the PL. He was only around for 3 years.

They will have to give him a free pass this season unless he is really really bad. But next season he will have to deliver or he will be out.
 
I find it funny how someone tries to explain to people who most likely followed every Bundesliga matchday for many years (and who all disagree with him) how exactly Klopp's achievements compare to the historic context of the league.

Coaching a club from a different league and football will obviously bring a lot of challenges, but trying to discredit his success in Germany is just silly.
 
I will be suprised if he ever gets Liverpool as close to the title as Rodgers did. But I think he will improve them as a team and he is about as desireable a manager as a top 7 team could hope to get in.

The worst thing about all this though is not so much his ability as a manager (a value slightly inflated by the cult of footballing celebrity) but the fact that he is a genuinely interesting* and thus far likeable guy.

*Not the Mourinho pretend interesting but really just tedious way.
 
I believe he'll move on after three years anyway. And no, that's not just wishful thinking on my part.
 
I will be suprised if he ever gets Liverpool as close to the title as Rodgers did. But I think he will improve them as a team and he is about as desireable a manager as a top 7 team could hope to get in.

The worst thing about all this though is not so much his ability as a manager (a value slightly inflated by the cult of footballing celebrity) but the fact that he is a genuinely interesting* and thus far likeable guy.

*Not the Mourinho pretend interesting but really just tedious way.

Maybe he's a slum landlord in Dortmund. You never know.
 
10am press conference according to Liverpool ITK's on Twitter.

Edit: scratch that, it's looking like it'll be the announcement tomorrow, press conference on Friday.
 
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The debate in this thread led me to check the record for Dortmund last season and even though I knew that it had been bad but I was shocked by just how bad it was. I know they ended up getting 7th place but they ended the season with 46 points from 34 games (13 wins, 7draws and 14 losses), now whichever way you look at it that is staggeringly bad for a top class manager.

Losing Lewandowski and replacing him with Immobile certainly didn't help. I think Reus was also injured a fair bit last season. I remember him getting a bad injury v Scotland at the start of the season.
 
I will be suprised if he ever gets Liverpool as close to the title as Rodgers did. But I think he will improve them as a team and he is about as desireable a manager as a top 7 team could hope to get in.

The worst thing about all this though is not so much his ability as a manager (a value slightly inflated by the cult of footballing celebrity) but the fact that he is a genuinely interesting* and thus far likeable guy.

*Not the Mourinho pretend interesting but really just tedious way.


It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, from afar, ie not week in week out, he seems a charismatic and fascinating chap, but after a few months of his mad cap remarks, and big grin then it could all start to wear a bit thin... might not aswell.
 
Klopp alone won't do much - I fear he'll bring players like Reus, Hummels with him - that's where we have a problem.
 
It's ludicrous to suggest he's had 11 very successful seasons in management (as has happened in this thread)

Lets count, then.
He became manager for Mainz after retiring from professional football, then spent 5 years leading them to unprecedented heights. Followed by 2 unsuccessful years getting relegated and trying to get the team back up. Left. Nevertheless, he left the foundation for everything Mainz is today.
5 out of 7
He then turned Dortmund from 13th to champion within a few years, retained the title and continued to establish Dortmund as a powerhouse in Germany and Europe again. Where it not for Bayern's ridiculously good seasons since 12/13, he might have made it 3 titles. Then, he had one horrendous half of a season and managed to salvage a little in the 2nd half to get them into the EL at least.
6 out of 7

In my book, that's 11 out of 14 seasons where he performed either way above expectations, or met them completely. And it's not like stints of 7 years are a common occurrence in today's football, either.
You make it sound like a manager has to win one or more titles for a year to count as a success, but this isn't Real, Barca, Bayern or Manchester pre Moyse we're talking about. It's Mainz and a previously floundering Dortmund. And unlike all the other clubs you cited, Dortmund look like they are not going to dwindle into mediocrity anytime soon. Because, unlike Magath, he left a very strong foundation for his successor to work with.
 
Lets count, then.
He became manager for Mainz after retiring from professional football, then spent 5 years leading them to unprecedented heights. Followed by 2 unsuccessful years getting relegated and trying to get the team back up. Left. Nevertheless, he left the foundation for everything Mainz is today.
5 out of 7
He then turned Dortmund from 13th to champion within a few years, retained the title and continiued to establish Dortmund as a powerhouse in Germany and Europe again. Where it not for Bayern's ridiculously good seasons since 12/13, he might have made it 3 titles. Then, he had one horrendous half of a season and managed to salvage a little in the 2nd half to get them into the EL at least.
6 out of 7

In my book, that's 11 seasons where he performed either way above expectations, or met them completely.

Then we'll just have to agree to disagree.
 
Losing Lewandowski and replacing him with Immobile certainly didn't help. I think Reus was also injured a fair bit last season. I remember him getting a bad injury v Scotland at the start of the season.

They had a lot of injury problems. Especially from their creative department. It also seems like something was lost between him and the players. When he announced that he is going to step down at the end of the season they immediately started to perform a lot better again and during that presser he said that he left because after all those years it was either him going or the club making major changes to the squad, replacing otherwise still very good players, because new stimuli were needed.
One can debate whether Sahin and an inform Güdogan or Kagawa would've made things look different, but the way things played out in that season it looked like he couldn't find answers to the very destructive approach of most of their opponents.

Then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

:lol:
 
Klopp alone won't do much - I fear he'll bring players like Reus, Hummels with him - that's where we have a problem.

Reus and Hummels won't move to Liverpool, though that won't stop their fans from pining for them, and mocking them in their pipeline XIs. Both of them just renewed their contracts with Borussia Dortmund, and pledged loyalty to the club. If the status quo remains, they will play in the Champions League year in and year out under Tuchel, while living in Germany. Liverpool meanwhile is in the doldrums, and even with Klopp, can they realistically promise the chance to not just compete, but contend in the Champions League ahead of United, City, Chelsea and Arsenal? If either of them do move, it'll probably be to the Spanish duo, infact there were strong rumors linking Reus with Madrid and Barcelona before the injury concerns surfaced.
 
Fair enough, it's probably for the best since you seem unwilling to argue your point.

I've argued my point plenty. I don't think anything other than promotion from a lower division, a decent title challenge, or of course, actually winning something should constitute success. You seem content to retrospectively call 4th in the second tier and failure to establish top flight presence with Mainz, and upper mid-table finishes with Dortmund successful.
 
Hummels' contract expires in 17. If he doesn't want to extent it again he will probably leave next summer. But media reports insinuated that he wasn't happy with the tactical development under Klopp, so I doubt he would follow him, especially if he isn't coaching a top club.

Reus just signed a long term contract though and I can't see Dortmund selling him.
 
I've argued my point plenty. I don't think anything other than promotion from a lower division, a decent title challenge, or of course, actually winning something should constitute success. You seem content to retrospectively call 4th in the second tier and failure to establish top flight presence with Mainz, and upper mid-table finishes with Dortmund successful.

So basically, any manager of a club that's expected to not get relegated or expected to finish in the upper half of the mid-table is unsuccessful in his job unless he at least mounts a title challenge. Got it. This has really run its course now.
 
Not to take anything from him during his time at Dortmund - I am a huge fan of what he did there - but I wanted to share this piece I heard on the Game podcast this week. Basically at Dortmund for the first couple of seasons he tried to play a very aggressive game with pressing in certain areas of the field. That worked in the majority of cases.
However, he also found that this approach is very tiring for the players. So last season, he started trying new things, experimenting with tactics especially against the weaker teams, and that's when the results deteriorated. He still had the great one-off performances - against Arsenal for example - but overall, it didn't work as well.

Not sure if he will return to the high pressing game at Liverpool, but certainly will be interesting. Hopefully he fails! :)
 
Reus and Hummels won't move to Liverpool, though that won't stop their fans from pining for them, and mocking them in their pipeline XIs.
Of course they won't. I haven't seen any Liverpool fan on here suggest otherwise though, it's mostly United fans arguing as to why they won't join Klopp, just to reassure themselves.

But, Klopp has a great track record in the transfer market and I'm hoping he'll be able to make some under the radar signings who could be huge for us, like he did at Dortmund. I'm not talking about actual superstars like Reus and Hummels, but players like Leno or Geis would make me very, very excited as well and would be serious upgrades on what we have right now. Furthermore, everyone keeps talking about his eye for German talents but he did also sign Lewandowski, Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang for example, none of which are German players but all three very succesful signings (Lewandowski and Aubameyang without a doubt, Mkhitaryan is arguable).
 
Depends what you mean by challengers.

This year, I'm hoping for/expecting a Europa League spot & one or two good cup runs. Next year, with his philosophy in place, and some good signings, a push for top 3/4 shouldn't be out of the question (I know we're not as well off as the current "big" four, but our owners aren't shy to spend, and Klopp might actually bring the right players in). As long as we challenge for the trophies we're in & start looking up the league instead of down, that's all I want.

After that? Who knows... We're getting way ahead of ourselves here. It isn't even official yet!
Actually those are much fairer and realistic expectations than I've been hearing from other fans. I actually look forward to seeing you lot challenge... As long as we win that is ;)
Makes every win sweeter
 
But, Klopp has a great track record in the transfer market and I'm hoping he'll be able to make some under the radar signings who could be huge for us, like he did at Dortmund. I'm not talking about actual superstars like Reus and Hummels, but players like Leno (or Horn/Karius although I don't know much about them) and Geis would make me very, very excited as well and would be serious upgrades on what we have right now. Furthermore, everyone keeps talking about his eye for German talents but he did also sign Lewandowski, Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang for example, none of which are German players but all three very succesful signings (Lewandowski and Aubameyang without a doubt, Mkhitaryan is arguable).

Yes, yes, fair point, that's one of the things that worries me slightly to be honest. His connection to the Bundesliga will be a great resource for you guys. Goretzka, Sule, Meyer, Brand, Karius, Oztunali, Rodriguez, and many, many more. Someone like Julian Weigl moved to Dortmund for dirt cheap in the summer, and Klopp might actually facilitate relatively under the radar, shrewd transfers like that. Plus, he might even help a couple of your existing players - Firmino and Can. Of course, we can't say for certain how much of Dortmund's acquisitions were partly because of him, rather than the club or Zorc; or how much of an attraction he'll be compared with the lure of a Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund, but it will undoubtedly help smooth things over, compared with a relatively lower profile, non German manager like Rodgers.
 
I've argued my point plenty. I don't think anything other than promotion from a lower division, a decent title challenge, or of course, actually winning something should constitute success. You seem content to retrospectively call 4th in the second tier and failure to establish top flight presence with Mainz, and upper mid-table finishes with Dortmund successful.


I'm not sure what to say. Yeah, he was so unsuccessful at Mainz that Bayern (and afaik pretty much every other Club with a vacancy) very seriously considered him.
Afaik every single season at Mainz would've been their club record compared to previous coaches. When he failed to get promoted in his last season he actually got more points with them than in the season that earned them their first promotion. And besides, as far as I can tell his post doesn't label the last two seasons there as success.

Dortmund were an utter shit side when he took them over. From their 07/08 squad only Weidenfeller, Kehl, Hummels und Blaszcykowski survived his first couple of seasons (with Sahin returning from a loan), the rest were replaced asap, even though they had literally no money to spend. In his first season the team earned 19 points more than before, conceded 25 goals less and scored 10 more. But yeah, that's what everyone expected :wenger:

He doesn't have to modify his judgement in retrospect, because he actually witnessed what he is talking about first hand. If pretty much everyone who actually follows the league closely week in week out (including Bayern fans, who talk about their biggest rival back then) strongly disagree with you that should be a tiny clue.
 
Regardless of what his army of fan boys think, Klopp is still a relatively unproven manager. He's managed in just one country, and had proper success in just two seasons. When the bar is winning league titles and becoming a European force, promotion hardly cuts it.

He didn't keep Mainz up for years, he kept them up for two seasons, before getting relegated in the third. He then quit after just one season back in the second tier because they didn't go straight back up. It's also a complete lie to suggest that he built them up from nothing. They had a good crack at promotion not too long before he took charge, and were a pretty well established second tier side for a long time before they gained their first promotion, having been there consistently since 1990. Mainz were then promoted the season after Klopp left, and have remained in the top flight ever since. In large part due to the efforts of his replacement at Dortmund.

Mainz weren't a nothing, minnow of a club when he became their manager, they were an established second tier side. It also isn't completely unheard of for a team to earn promotion to the Bundesliga for the first time and remain there for longer than three seasons. Augsburg have done exactly that, and they were in the 4th tier when Klopp took charge of Mainz.

His apparent Lazarus-esque revival of Dortmund is hugely overstated as well. Yes they'd finished 13th the season before he got the job, but a trajectory of 13th, 6th, 5th then 1st isn't exactly unheard of in Germany. Wolfsburg had gone from 15th in 06-07, to 5th in 07-08, to winning the league in 08-09, and that was under Felix Magath. Werder Bremen managed something similar, finish 13th in 98-99, then winning the league in 03-04, with a few 9th to 6th placed finishes in between, all under Thomas Schaaf. Then there's Stuttgart that went from 9th to 1st in consecutive seasons under Armin Veh.

No one thought Magath, Schaaf or Veh were the second coming of Christ when they did something similar, nor did they think Klaus Toppmoller when he took an unfancied Bayer Leverkusen to the Champions League Final in 2002. The reason Klopp is so highly regarded is because Dortmund played an exciting brand of football, a brand not too dissimilar to the style Rodgers played in 2013/14, and because he's a bit of a nutter.
That's a pretty well compiled recent history of the Bundesliga. But actually it proves not what you think it does.

From those recent Bundesliga winners you have mentioned, two were just pure fluke winners, kind of one-hit-wonders: Wolfburg and Stuttgart. They both got on a lucky run, and caught Bayern on a really weak year. A year later both disappeared in mediocracy and their title winning managers were gone.

Then there was Werder Bremen. They have had a really good run for some years. But that was almost as much due to a fine transfer management than it was because of the manager -- bear in mind, those two jobs are separated in Germany. Klaus Allofs, whose transfer skills helped a lot in Bremen, is now responsable for Wolfsburg's current success.

What Klopp separates from all these is his long term success. And success in my eyes is turning an almost bankrupt club into a contender year after year. He developed a great team, a winning culture, and a great style of football that was top for many years, and is still today. And he did it with basically no money. In his first couple of years all his spending had to be refinanced by transfer incomes.

The last year many are so focussed on was actually an almost surreal abnormality: Dortmund was superior in basically every match, bar the Bayern matches, but no player could hit the goal to save his life. Not even Marco Reuss. I can't remember all the stats but after Bayern they had by far the most shots on goal in the Bundesliga. It just didn't want to go in. Shit happens. Now the same players hit it again. From the same spots. Maybe managers are generally overrated...

I'm not predicting that Klopp will beat the big four of the EPL. But I'm sure he will challenge them. Interesting times ahead. You should look forward!
 
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I've argued my point plenty. I don't think anything other than promotion from a lower division, a decent title challenge, or of course, actually winning something should constitute success. You seem content to retrospectively call 4th in the second tier and failure to establish top flight presence with Mainz, and upper mid-table finishes with Dortmund successful.
I've so far refrained from joining this discussion, but it is getting, quite frankly, ridiculous. We were involved in relegation battles in practically every season in the second division, including the year Klopp took over and kept us up. He was the one who turned the team around and led the promotion charge the season after. The two narrow misses, heartbreaking as they were, can't be considered anything but successful seasons, not "failure to establish top flight presence".

Then we finally managed to get promoted and everyone expected we'd go straight down again. Klopp kept us up twice against the odds, but didn't quite manage it a third time. I'll add that we were relegated with the highest ever points total in Bundesliga history, so it wasn't even that bad a season - mostly lacking a goalscorer in the first half of the season; if we'd had Zidan all year, we'd have stayed up comfortably.

Klopp then left for a bigger club after failing to get us re-promoted immediately, which nobody really begrudged him. He was hugely important in making the club what it is today (second only to our general manager Heidel) and you'll be hard pressed to find any Mainz supporter who has a bad word to say about him.
 
So basically, any manager of a club that's expected to not get relegated or expected to finish in the upper half of the mid-table is unsuccessful in his job unless he at least mounts a title challenge. Got it. This has really run its course now.
Some of them are full on propaganda mode in this thread. I never understand the motivation of people to blatantly lie to make their team look better/ opponents look worse - who do they think they're fooling?
 
Something else, excuse me if it was already discussed somewhere else, I'm a poor German: Is RAWK really the "best" Liverpool forum? I just had a look in order to see what they think about Klopp, and now I'm really confused.

I'm asking because it is so ... unstructured, if you know what I mean. There are so few recent topics, right? But then there are really huge threads, I mean one with 85,000 replies?? Am I missing something? Do I need to become a member to see the real thing?
 
Something else, excuse me if it was already discussed somewhere else, I'm a poor German: Is RAWK really the "best" Liverpool forum? I just had a look in order to see what they think about Klopp, and now I'm really confused.

I'm asking because it is so ... unstructured, if you know what I mean. There are so few recent topics, right? But then there are really huge threads, I mean one with 85,000 replies?? Am I missing something? Do I need to become a member to see the real thing?

The official forum is better than RAWK.
Catching ebola is better than that place.
 
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