Jurgen Klopp was a ‘touchline bully’ for Liverpool; don’t expect us to mourn his exit

Jurgen Klopp still dominates the Mailbox. If you want that to change, write some e-mails about the actual football.

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There was some football on Tuesday night!

Please, PLEASE tell me that Wednesday morning’s mailbox isn’t going to be yet another Liverpool/Klopp w*nk-fest. Sorry, should’ve said Clop. (In point of fact, this surely must be how all non-Liverpool supporters refer to the Liverpool manager on F365 from this point on!).

I just can’t believe that fans of the Hatters, Palace, Gooners and The Toon, or the teams they played, won’t have anything to say.

I know F365 can only print the mails they get but come on!

Mark (Leicester are smashing the Championship, aren’t they?). MCFC

Good grief

Just reading the mailbox and the vitriol from Liverpool fans towards poor old John Nicholson.

I think stage 2 has kicked in.

@rubym83

Don’t expect us to worship Klopp with you

While I am mostly amused at the inevitable collective outpouring of grief by Liverpool fans, mostly because I’ve been plenty sick of their bragging and nonsense down the years, I also fully understand how deeply upset they are. Although I’d suggest this is more about once again entering the great unknown. As a United fan, I fully understand that. Does it warrant all the upset for one league title otherwise?

However, this line from the earlier mailbox made me laugh out loud.

“…fighting against nation state owned teams on both fronts…”

Now look, this is nonsense and the context around this kind of chat is akin to the “we should all support what brave little (formerly dominant and one of the most supported clubs in world football and the media) Liverpool are doing against the mighty evil” crap that comes around every now and again.

F*** off. Please. Really. Just f*** off.

Liverpool are your club, but they are also a club that, quite critically, have spent a hell of a lot of money for Klopp to build his semi-successful side. Let’s not forget, he bought an entirely new side before he won his league and CL title. Yes, the money men found ways to balance the books quite neatly but the money was still spent. Lots of it. Most expensive keeper and most expensive defender to name but two. Liverpool aren’t some struggling side, they didn’t come from the lower leagues. And they probably won’t be going down there.

Comparisons to Leicester rebuilding in the Championship and winning the title on a lean budget are laughable.

So do your grieving as much as you need, have your concerns and hopes for the future but please don’t expect the rest of us to give a damn. And don’t expect us to worship the touchline bully ourselves.

Badwolf

…I’ve been head down and arse up the last couple of days with work, unable to browse websites at work and too tired to do anything other than eat/sleep in my time at home. Imagine my glee when I opened the Mailbox with a coffee this morning to see that a hornets nest has been poked by Johnny Nic!

I read the article, helpfully hyperlinked in the first mail from Scott, expecting some invective from yer man about ‘Yurgen Clop’ that would take me back to the early days when you winced at some of the sentences on the page. There are many times when I’ve disagreed with what has been written but he pretty much nailed it here.

Klopp has done great things for sure and will go down as one of the best for a generation of Liverpool fans but he’s hardly the GOAT is he? More like Wenger than Ferguson in the context of his battle with Guardiola; he built a fantastic team by recruiting well, developed youth, rebuilt his squad to create another fantastic team but will always be Mr Nearly But Not Quite when you boil the whole thing down to silverware and in the context of his battles with City domestically and Real Madrid in Europe.

That might sound harsh, and it’s not to say he hasn’t had the deck stacked against him when you consider his opposition but it’s true no matter how much you like the man or admire the football his teams produce. The game will be worse off without him at Liverpool, but at the end of the day all Johnny is asking for is some perspective.

On a side note I notice that there is no note saying the article was written with the help of Bard and that they seem to be back to their normal length so hope this is a sign his recovery is going well.

Owen (gearing up for a first full NPL season in NSW), Sydney

Replacing Klopp blah blah blah

Hilarious juxtaposition of missives in the Mailbox; summing up the utter state of football fans.

Paul, Chester wrote in to essentially hold Jurgen Klopp responsible for the future happiness/misery of Paul personally and Liverpool collectively, because he resigned from a job as football manager. Not a job educating the young or healing the sick or feeding the hungry or sheltering the homeless; a job picking people to play football.

Then immediately in the next email TomG points out why some grown up sensible adults might hesitate to replace Klopp in that role as they will be utterly slaughtered if they don’t win everything, now, forever…… mostly by people like….well, you know.

Why does it matter? Why does your favourite football club matter? Most of you don’t care that much about your community or your health service or your schools or your fellow humans, so why a football club? Please explain.

MIM

​The obvious replacement for Klopp…is Klopp

I think maybe there is an obvious answer to Klopp’s need for a break and reset. Take a year off.

Leave it with the existing staff in a interim role(Pep) as manager with the understanding that Klopp will be back the year after.

Perfect sabbatical and he gets to come back…. assuming what he says is true and he loves the club, everyone wins if everyone knows the situation from the start.

Consistency within the club, future planning and no upheaval, Pep gets his chance to manage(he can take another job next year of he does well), Klopp gets his rest(while stil offering feedback on signings etc) and could the team possible perform worse than they did last season?

This is the perfect opportunity for all involved. If Pep is interested in becoming a manager, he will never get a better opportunity at a club near the top.

Liam

Klopp jumped before the ship started sinking

First time contribution after many years of reading the mailbox.

I can’t help but feel this isn’t a “lack of energy” decision but old Jürgen has learnt lessons from his past and is leaving Liverpool as he can see significant challenges on the horizon.

Last season 5th but the lowest points gained since Klopp’s first season when they finished 8th. Is this season out of the norm for this squad?

Contracts, Trent, VVD, Salah all go into final year of contract in September, does Jürgen know that a couple are leaving, we already know Matip and Thiago are leaving for free at the end of the season.

Spine, the spine of the great Klopp team could be absolutely decimated in 2 seasons.(Alisson apart). Matip,VVD, Henderson,.Fabinho, Salah, Mane, Firmino all potentially gone the defence and attack will need a rebuild.

History, Klopp knows he stayed that little bit to long at Dortmund, key players left Gundogan, Gotze and he ended leaving on a sour note after great success and he doesn’t want lightning to strike twice.

Worrying if you’re a Liverpool fan.

Paul, Huge Gunnersaurus fan

Moments not medals

I know there’s a lot of talk about Klopp, but I want to offer a slightly different perspective. I rewatch LFC/Barca to watch every Alisson save, Gini’s turn, TAA’s corner. That’s what gets replayed in 50 years’ time. Nobody is rewatching a handball that killed a tie in Madrid in the first minute.

Geezers who are old enough will remember they wrote songs about Germany 1, England 5. Sure I want my team to win, but sitting on the train talking about a Division 2 screamer is the memory that lasts.

Brian Moores

On managers, owners and players

Johnny Nic’s piece on the hysteria around Klopp’s departure was mostly absolutely right. He probably should have known better than to have said good not great base don trophies but apart from that, there wasn’t much to disagree with. It’s never just the manager, it’s always the manager, the players and the rest of the club.

My grandfather took me to see my first match, against Everton in the Liverpool senior cup in the early sixties, so I’ve been here before. I grew up with Bill Shankly as manager, taking the team from the 2nd division to winning trophies on a regular basis. If ever there was a chismatic manager to beat all the others, it was Shanks. When he retired, there was the same sort of reaction as now with Klopp. The replacement was Bob Paisley who didn’t have Shankly’s charisma but who helped Liverpool to win 14 major trophies in 9 years. At the end of his time in charge, the club was in such fine condition that we carried on winning with Joe Fagan and then Kenny Dalglish. Keny’s team even playing the best football I remember.

We didn’t stop wining just because Souness became manager. Man Utd were getting stronger with Sir Alex and David Gill making their club better organised, better financed and better coached. Meanwhile, LFC’s owners were saying commercialisation was tawdry and they wouldn’t join in. Gill made sure Utd had the most money and Fergie made sure they used it to buy the best players, then coached them to win the most matches.

Liverpool were quite good but not great for a long time after that. FSG changed the way the club was run. They improved the financing, the organisation, the failities and introduced an analytical approach to recruitment. They knew from their baseball background how valuable data analytics could be even if they didn’t have the football knowledge to apply it. They did now how to hire the right people, so they did that.

It took them 3 attempts at hiring a manager to hit the bullseye. Klopp was a near perfect fit to what Liverpool needed, a Shankly like figure, a great motivator but with enough tactical nous to compete at the highest level. Combined with the clubs financial strength being enough to attract top level players and the club’s improved ability to choose the right players, the combination of Money, facilities, organisation, recruitment and coaching has produced a lot of enjoyment and notable success.

The money, facilities, organisation and recruitment will all be the same next year, only the coaching will be different. It might be better, it might be worse. It probably won’t be as much fun. The football will be played by the players who will almost certainly be very good.

Mike (65 years of LFC, calm down lads)

Shouldn’t Liverpool have won more?

In terms of the argument that Klopp has or hasn’t underachieved, let’s not forget plenty of Liverpool fans a few seasons back said that they have the best keeper, best full backs, best central defender and best front 3 in World football. Yet now that is apparently irrelevant as big bad City bought their success as Liverpool’s expense.

At some point the money spent by City (or Chelsea or United etc) becomes irrelevant if you have happened to line up all those best players in one team at a fraction of the price. Credit to the manager and the recruitment team for doing that but if those are the best players then they should really go and win the trophies shouldn’t they? Just because Mendy cost City £50m never made him a better player than Robertson despite him costing many times more.

J

…I get that LFC were terrible before Klopp took over, and I get he has raised the club to a level they had not seen since the 80’s. I can understand the joy at watching 92, 97 and 99 point PL finishes. I know the feeling of seeing your team win the CL, LC and FA Cups.

What’s to come for LFC? Not entirely sure. They appear to use more of a data model for selecting players and coaches, so there shouldn’t be a Moyes/United moment. That said, whoever they decide to hire, they are in for a tough time.

Gone are the days where a coach gets given time and resources to make the team what he desires. One downside to Clops success is that the standards have been raised, along with expectations…and misery. This isn’t post Rafa/Rodgers, this is a team theoretically meant to challenge City, Arsenal, Chelsea and United.

People often forget – and forgive – Klopp’s fairly unremarkable start. While his first season brought two finals, it also brought two final defeats (LC + EL), along with an 8th place finish. His second season brought a 4th placed finish and no final appearances. His third season also brought a 168M investment, a 4th placed finish, early domestic cup knockouts, and a lost CL final to Real, with City the only major team they defeated that CL campaign.

So far that’s two 4th place finishes, three lost finals and about 241M spent improving the team. I am not certain whoever replaced Klopp will be given such funds and time to match what he has up until this point (though 241M could be two transfer windows these days).

The next four seasons bring peak LFC and Klopp. Another 160M in 2018/19 is spent, and with that came a 97 point second placed league finish, early domestic cup exits and a CL final win vs Spurs. As good as that was, there was also tremendous fortune. LFC got out of the group stage based on goals scored as they were tied with Napoli, had that fortunate comeback win vs Barca in the 1/4, and even needed the referees harsh call to get started vs Spurs and a half crocked Kane.

2020 brought a first league title in 30 years with a grand total of 99 points. Very impressive, but that also comes with an * as that was also the pandemic year. They did win the Super cup (Penalties vs Chelsea) and the Club World Cup. The Community Shield was lost to City, and people forget Villa smashed them 5-0 in the LC third round.

2021 saw an understandable dip in form, resulting in a massive 30 point drop from the previous year, finishing in 3rd, behind Ole’s United. Another Community Shield defeat – this time to Arsenal – was all else written about that season.

2022 saw a bounceback and potential quadruple, with a 92 point second placed finish, two domestic cup victories – both vs Chelsea on pens – and another lost CL final to Real. The toughest teams beaten on route to that final were Atletico, and Inter. The best of all time? No.

2023 saw another regression, ending up in 5th, losing the LC to City, but for the first time winning the Community shield, vs new rivals City.

We are now in his final year, One LC final vs Chelsea bodes well if they can get to penalties, and they are favourites for the EL(Klopps missing piece). They are currently league leaders, and could potentially win the FA cup too. So this could ultimately end very well indeed.

If it doesn’t, we could be heaping praise – and abandoning our wives – for a coach that has lost 2 CL finals, 1 EL final, 2 LC finals and two community shields. He did win 1 CL final, 1 FA Cup final, 1 LC final, 1 Super Cup, 1 CWC and 1 community shield, with none of them being convincing wins except the CWC. There was a first place league finish, but there were no challengers that year, leaving 5 top 4 finishes, and twice missing out.

So all-in all, Klopp can certainly create a machine that can do well domestically. He can also make his team a good cup team. It must also be recognized his team wasn’t that great in finals, and lost more than they won, and won fortunately when they did. Still, 13 trophy opportunities, 1 league title and 3 X 90 plus seasons over 9 years are no small feats, especially given where they came from, but now it’s up to who follows him to repeat the trick, and I’m not sure they’ll be given 4 years and 400M to get started.

Calvino (FYI JO- Fergie won in the 90’s despite LFC + Blackburn spending more, won in the 2000’s despite Chelsea spending more, and won in the 2010’s despite City spending more. Klopp literally started winning when he spent more)

Look what Klopp did win…

Lots of people writing in over the last few days and listing all of Klopp’s achievements.

I can’t believe Liverpool fans have forgotten about all those net spend trophies.

Chris

Why aren’t Man City winning everything?

I’m a little bit confused. I’ve been reading all the mails on here about Saint Jurgen and how amazingly well he’s done considering he’s had to compete against ‘State Owned City’s Unlimited Funds’. Yet a couple of days ago you published the Net Spend table for the last 5 years and City were only in 6th place behind Chelsea, United, Arsenal, Spurs and Newcastle.

How can this be possible, we have UNLIMITED FUNDS? What are we playing at? How can Frugal Daniel Levy have a higher net spend than us? I knew we should have just offered them 200 million to buy Harry Kane. What’s the point of having Unlimited Funds and having a lower net spend than Arsenal? Why haven’t we used our Unlimited Funds to get M’Bappe, Bellingham and Valverde?

Oh well, at least we’ve still got Schrodinger’s Bald Fraud, apparently once he leaves our dominance will be over, despite all the various grandmothers who could achieve the same as he has with said Unlimited Funds.

Michael The Bert

Casting net spend

Dan Mallerman, I have a great deal for you, please buy a £5,000 TV and sell it to me for £3,000 so you have £3,000 cash in hand

Then look at your bank account and tell me net spend isn’t important.

Cheers

Andrew (I have bridges for sale also)

Man Utd need pacey defenders

Just a small but obvious observation about United transfer business in the last 10-15yrs that never gets a mention….is it not glaringly obvious that the best teams have a high press and to have a high press you need quick defenders and those teams with the quickest defenders seem to be doing better than most – Van Dijk, Walker, Saliba, Gabriel, Akinje, Matip even spurs now are performing better since Van Der Ven.

United’s centre-back signings – Maguire, Lindelof, Martinez, Blind, Rojo. Other than Bailly who was a liability and Varane whose legs have gone, United don’t buy speed. So we don’t push up the pitch or leave two on two at the back so the team is so spread out and easy to play against. When we were good you could afford Stam or Ferdinand on the halfway line cos they could outrun most forwards thus allowing more players to support the attack.

Not rocket science.

Tom Chestnut

​Rashford out

​It is time for Rashford to go. He honestly looks and feels like his heart is no longer in it. He admitted two years ago his head wasn’t in the right place. Then last season he bounced back, took his game to a new level, albeit a still rather inconsistent one. At his best, he is fast, can take his man on, and finishes from cutting in. Sadly, at his worst, he is irrelevant in attack, losing easy balls, and fighting for very little. Regardless of form, he rarely offers much if anything defensively.

Rashford is a bit one dimensional for me. He is almost as predictable as Antony, and offers not much more in terms of ‘on the ball value’. For a big guy, he is terrible in the air, and his decision making can be deplorable at times. He cannot cross, and tends to try for a goal himself despite better positioned teammates. He would be great in a Jota role, like at LFC, but unfortunately he has an ego as if he is a Salah.

Add in the recent and past missteps, then this is a player who is not focused on his game, and is now holding the club in contempt. There is 0 chance he did not know how his night out would be reacted to, and clearly he did not care.

If PSG offer to replace Mbappe with him, then United should take their money and run. There is a player in there, but one who needs his ego massaged, and the team all performing for his ends. He answers the question: what if Ronaldo worked less, but still had the same attitude.

Calvino

What is going on at Man Utd?

What on earth is happening at Utd? It’s been clear for a while now that the changing room has been lacking the required attitude & focus, but assumed it was more a result of a transfer policy based on reputation, potential, marketability rather due attention to character. Pogba, Sancho, Anthony etc.

But when the homegrown poster boys start going off the rails?! Private jet off to Belfast for a two day bender in a game week, takes your breath away. Maybe one leads to the other, lack of example setting & leadership from the big money signings? Whatever the reason though, the attitude in that changing room has fallen to a truly shocking low.

And what of Ten Hag? Thought he was meant to be the required disciplinarian to harness this unruly bunch. Took a stern line with Ronaldo & Sancho (and to a lesser extent Varane), which I applauded him for, but apparently Rashford is back training with the first team squad already. Doesn’t do much to dispel the accusations of favouritism, especially given this is a 2nd recent offence. You can’t pick & choose when to apply the iron fist. I do feel for Eric though, when he took the job he couldn’t have imagined that he’d spend such a significant proportion of his time playing headmaster to these miscreants.

The insane conclusion to this all is that Utd actually need Mad Todd Boelhy rather than Jim Ratcliffe. Sell the entire f**king squad and just start again. Mad Todd, right man, wrong club.

Simon, Bristol LFC

Cockney Rebel FC – Pwoper naugthy!

1 Les Sealy – Bethnal Green

2 Alfie Doughty – Poplar

3 Frank Lampard Snr – East Ham

4 Jimmy Bullard – East Ham

5 Sol Campbell – Plaistow

6 Jerry Murphy – Stepney

7 Harry Redknapp – Poplar

8 Lee Bowyer – Canning Town

9 Clive Allen – Stepney

10 Jermain Defoe – Beckton

11 Martin Peters – Plaistow

David Bailey

Not made of stone

I’ve been reading this site for over 15 years and I’ve never seen a mail I agreed with as much as one I saw today.

James is absolutely spot on, the Maidstone one way system is horrible. And I say that as someone who nearly got divorced trying to navigate the Derby ring road.

Ed Quoththeraven

Watching the media from Africa

I’ve loved Mediawatch ever since I started reading F365. It is a soothing balm for the, sometimes unbelievable, mind numbing nonsense you see and hear in the English football media. But it has always felt somewhat distant for someone who doesn’t actually live in England, until now though.

AFCON has almost always been seen as a nuisance for fans of EPL clubs, even some of us African EPL fans feel the same way. This edition has been different though. The football is better, mainly because of actual tactical improvements all round and more players plying their trades in more competitive leagues.

The most surprising thing though, has been the officiating. The refs have been awesome and it seems like Africa is showing the world how VAR should be used. So imagine my surprise seeing the mailonline headline “AFCON referee misses STONEWALL penalty and issue Nicholas Pepe yellow card for diving against Senegal”.

If I didn’t watch the match, I’d have been a little embarrassed because of all the hype so far about the refereeing, but I was embarrassed more than a little for Daily Mail.

Not only did VAR work and give the penalty, the yellow card wasn’t even given to Pepe, but to a teammate for remonstrating to the referees face. A little research, if you can call it that, on any livescores app of your choice would have told a truer story than that article.

A lot of people online seem to think it’s a jab at AFCON, a missed one though, because the officiating has been compared mostly with that on the EPL. And it’s hard not to go down that train of thought. You’d think someone who reads mediawatch religiously wouldn’t be surprised by this coming out of mailonline, but I didn’t think they could go this low, not when it’s this easy to figure their lies out.

I can now say I fully understand what mediawatch is about, its not just my daily dose of good rib cracking. I feel like my respect for you guys has gone even higher, and I didn’t think that could happen.

Ayo, Nagelsmann for MUFC. Lagos, Nigeria

Nigeria ahoy

Tuesday was a great Premier League night for players of Nigerian descent.

Bukayo Saka scored for Arsenal.

Taiwo Awoniyi scored for Forest.

Eberechi Eze scored a brace for Palace.

Michael Olise got one for Palace too.

Elijah Adebayo scored a hat trick for Forest.

Chiedozie Ogbene added one too.

Sadly, only one of them plays for Nigeria.

Tunji, Lagos