Liverpool FC and Jürgen Klopp: Stuttering victory machine

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Jürgen Klopp

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PETER POWELL / Action Images / REUTERS

Jürgen Klopp sat there with his hands in his jacket pockets, his gaze fixed, and listened very quietly.

A journalist at the press conference asked about Liverpool's prospects in the title race.

Klopp pulled a face in a grimace.

“How silly that would be,” said Klopp, “if I now, after a loss to Burnley and after we, I don't know: three?

four?

Games, talked about the title race? "

Klopp, 53, has made Liverpool FC a top team since taking office in 2015, and that's actually an understatement.

The coach brought his own game idea with him, he gradually formed a winning machine that seemed invincible.

In 2019 Liverpool won the Champions League, the first championship in 30 years last summer.

Since he was there, things had been going up for Klopp.

This championship title was his peak.

But now it seems to be going downhill.

Crisis is a big word, it sounds so existential.

Judging by its own standards, i.e. what the club has delivered in the past three years in particular, it doesn't seem too big at the moment.

The 0: 1 against Burnley on Thursday evening means that Liverpool have not won five league games in a row.

It had last happened more than ten years ago.

In the past four games, the Reds didn't even score a goal.

Since Sadio Mané's last goal against West Brom, the team had fired 86 shots, no one went in, no matter how big the chance was.

Against Burnley, striker Divock Origi ran undisturbed towards goal after a back pass from an opponent that was too short.

He hit the bar.

Now Liverpool have fewer points after 19 games than they have since the 2015/2016 season.

Should Manchester City win their catch-up game, the gap to first place is already seven points.

Why do balls suddenly hit the crossbar that would have landed in the goal before?

Why isn't Liverpool winning anymore?

There are many answers, both big and small.

Some of them give Liverpool courage: They suggest that the Reds will start winning again very soon.

Others point out that this may not be enough to successfully defend the title.

Seven hits would have been likely.

Liverpool didn't succeed

One number speaks for an early end to the negative run: 6.55.

It describes Liverpool's expected goals value since the last goal scoring so far.

There are different expected goals models;

they all calculate the likelihood of scoring from a certain point on the field.

Put simply, this means: With the chances that the team last created, about seven hits would have been likely.

Liverpool didn't succeed.

Such an unlikely yield is unlikely to last.

That means: If Liverpool consistently create opportunities like they did last, the goals will fall again.

Klopp knows models like the expected goals.

Maybe he had the latest numbers in mind when he said after the Burnley game that Liverpool are "not going through the happiest period of our lives".

His team have already won games with fewer chances against Burnley.

In fact, it had been a trademark of Liverpool, especially in the past three years, to win even close games with few chances to score.

No matter how well the opponent seemed to defend: At some point Mohamed Salah found a low pass and Sadio Mané found a cross.

It was just as the game was drawing to a close that Liverpool's time began.

That almost looked scary.

If you looked at the numbers behind the victories, you already suspected that in addition to the tactical foundation, the class of the players and the mentality of the team, a little luck had also been involved.

Liverpool almost always won those games that statistically could well have ended in a draw.

Liverpool are currently no longer winning such games, they are even lost.

The goals may return soon.

The defensive problems are likely to remain.

Liverpool have conceded 22 goals in 19 games.

To speak of "problems" may sound harsh.

Last year, however, there had been 14 goals conceded at the same time of the season, before only seven.

And the data behind those 22 current goals suggest that they were not particularly unlikely to have come about.

This is certainly also due to the absence of the long-term injured defense chief Virgil van Dijk.

But: Defending, which has always been the basis of all Klopp teams, did not begin in front of their own goal in Dortmund, but in the opposing penalty area.

Put the opponent's build-up under pressure;

Pressing in a coordinated manner immediately after losing the ball, that was Klopp's trademark.

All of this took strength.

It's just that power is currently such a thing.

The schedule is tightly timed in Corona times, the load is enormous.

Almost on a weekly basis, it can be observed that Premier League teams press less.

Liverpool's players still sprint a lot, but they also look: exhausted.

Against Burnley, it seemed like the team wanted to force success towards the end, but things that usually succeed a hundred times in a row suddenly became a tough nut to crack.

When Trent Alexander-Arnold didn’t play the ball to team-mate Andy Robertson shortly before the end, but passed him into the goal, without need, without pressure, he turned around and started moving, you could almost think that he wanted to straight to the cabin, that's it, off, I don't like anymore;

but Alexander-Arnold only went back to his position.

Robertson stared after him, seemingly stunned.

"Our self-confidence is just not at the highest level," said Klopp after the game.

He talked about how the team is doing a lot of things right, but making wrong decisions when things get tight.

“We have to become ourselves again when it comes down to it,” he said, and: “90 percent of what we are is still there.

Only this ten percent is missing. "

Ten percent can be a lot in the Premier League, though.

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