Yes he did. You can talk about us but Klopps squad had no outstanding players whatsover apart from Coutinho and Liverpool as a club did not have the resources or renown to sign players from the same tier that United could. i.e Falcao, Di Maria, Pogba and Ibrahimovic. So there was no way he could kick start his project in the same way Mourinho could.
Yes, we progressed but never convincingly so apart from a 6 month spell and the state of us this season has undone any hope left over from what wasn't a great season for us despite finishing 2nd in the league. Yes there were problems in the summer but there's no way that our current situation could be excused by that. Tottenham had a much worse summer but they've managed to stay floating despite it.
To include Klopps first season in comparison seems a bit unfair aswell considering he took over a dodgy looking side, sitting in 10th position by the time he took charge. Sinc then though he's finished in the top 4 twice while currently being in the race for the title sitting only 2 points behind City. By the end the end of the season we'll be looking at our second finish outside of the top 4 under Mourinhos management, that's not acceptable at all considering the money spent and how little progression we've made.
Yes, Mourinhos got us to three finals but we were the strongest team going in to all of them and won two, how many titles do you think Mourinho would have got us if instead of Ajax and Southampton we'd have come up against City and Sevilla?
You really think people would've been out in force calling for the head of the manager who just got us to a Champions League final smashing the likes of City on the way whilst finishing top 4? I' not saying people would be creaming themselves but it's at least as legitimate as what Jose achieved with us last season to earn himself his third season. There'd have been little doubt about the progression made and it's showing this season for them aswell.
I don't mind spending when you spend well. We've spent poorly and without vision.
And what players did we have in the squad LVG left to aspire confidence to the start of project ? At this moment we had only 3, De Gea, Martial and Rashford, a GK and 2 inconsistent youngsters in their first year in premier league. Both squads were nearly similar when it comes to personel, 1 or 2 good players surrounded by dross. Also saying Liverpool don't have resources is pretty naive I'll say. There's no club in England that doesn't have resources. They are a very, very rich club, but they were trying to achieve good results while spending as less as possible. When they actually decided it's time to start competing they splashedthe cash. Each club in England has enough money to spend, it's up to them to decide of they want to spend.
I find it quite ironic that people are saying the trophies we won under Mourinho were against midtable clubs while Klopp faced this and this in final. I mean we all watched each team routes to the final don't we? Klopp had it only tough in his Europe League whn he faced strong opponents, but his draw in League Cup and CL were piss easy. In LC, they faced Bournemouth, Southmapton and Stoke. The final was literally their only strong game in the tournament and he lost it. In CL, he faced only City and Madrid in the whole run, his group was pretty easy and he drew Porto and Roma in KO. Why are these not mentioned but the finals are only ? His Europe League campaign was the only tough one. He's having a tough group this year and they are struggling to get out of it now. Some perspective please. We ont need some perspective when it comes to this. Maybe if we had stonger draws than this he wouldn't have even reached these 2 finals to start with.
I'm not now talking about us spending or not in last summer to bring Spurs in. I said that the conflict and dilemma between Mourinho and Ed fecked up the squad and led to us going backward this season. We're performing far below our level this season and Mourinho needs to take blame for this, no one is saying otherwise and it's not the point.
The point is it's weird to keep mentioning Liverpool as a stick to beat us with while I don't have anything extraordinary Klopp did last 3 years to claim he progressed the team in terms of results far more than Mourinho in his last 2 seasons. Both did very decent job and Mourinho had done very good progress on the team he got LVG got this season. I felt that this season we should have went on with more improvement in the team regarding both personels and coaching, and it should have been expected thanks to the steady progress we were doing last 2 years but it's all fecked up now between Mourinho and board in their directions for the team, which is frustrating to see that we're going backward after finally stabilizing the ship.
They are starting to compete on league this season after they decided to splash the cash on their weakness, and Klopp himself admitted he was fool when he was talking about Pogba money after what they spent on VVD and Alisson, and admitted that money was needed to be spent to improve the squad, so I'm not sure why he's made as a case of merely improving what he had and that's it when he himself contradicted himself and considered himself a fool for mocking Pogba's money.
People would have called for Klopp's head, I ensure you they would. Grass is always greener on the other side for some, remember. They were always be moaners. There were moaners during Fergie era as well, moaning about zombie fooball while we were dominating the fecking league. It's the nature of football fans that's all.
Finally, I agree that again, Klopp plays better and more entertaining football than Mourinho, but that's Mourinho for you. That has always been his style and will be after he leaves. You don't hire him to play good on the eye football. He's basically applying his brand of football here, playing ugly and securing results by grinding. It's not a surprise for anyone and as much as Klopp is applying his brand at Liverpool, Mourinho did here too, they are just 2 polar opposite to each other. If we wanted to play exciting football, we shouldn't have hired Mourinho to start with. He wasn't going to change at this point of his career imo. Should have searched for a different profile of a manager then.