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Your support makes all the difference.“Anfield, where greatness happens” was a slogan that caught Gary Neville’s eye when he went to Liverpool on Monday. The former Manchester United captain took a photo and tweeted “happened”.
Neville is right. Greatness has not happened at Anfield for a long time but Neville’s aside that this was a remark he could come to regret might be borne out.
When Liverpool were great they measured themselves by trophies and in the last decade they have paraded a single League Cup, won after a penalty shoot-out against Cardiff under a manager, Kenny Dalglish, who was to be sacked a few months later.
As he prepared for the tie against Tottenham, for whom the League Cup is the only trophy they have won in a quarter of a century, Jurgen Klopp was surely correct to emphasise the importance of the competition.
“We decided after losing (last year’s final) to Manchester City that we should try again,” he said. “It would be a negative sign if we needed to lose a final to feel that.”
When Klopp arrived at Anfield, he raised an eyebrow when reminded that English football boasts two domestic cup competitions. He was concerned about burn-out and the absence of a winter break and the presence of the League Cup seemed like things he could do without. Having reached Wembley and run Manchester City very close, Klopp has a different opinion.
“It is an interesting tournament, a big cup and that is why we want to win it,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about the League Cup final before but when I was there it was a real final, a real experience.”
There would be some changes. Simon Mignolet who was told after the international break that he is now Liverpool’s second-choice keeper, will start against Tottenham.
Mignolet, whom his manager accepted was ‘not happy’ about the situation, started against Tottenham in Klopp’s first game as Liverpool manager almost exactly a year ago.
Of the team that played out a goalless draw at White Hart Lane, more than half have left Anfield or have realised they have no future under Klopp.
What dragged down Liverpool in Klopp’s first season was the sheer amount of football a thin squad was required to play.
Klopp took over in mid-October and took charge of 52 matches in the Premier and Europa Leagues, the League and the FA Cup. That is nine more games than Brendan Rodgers oversaw in the whole of the 2013-14 season when Liverpool came achingly close to a first league title in a generation.
Klopp’s high-octane pressing game – ‘heavy metal football’ as he calls it – takes more out of his players than the quick, sharp counter-attacking game Rodgers preferred. They took a great deal out of a squad that had no pre-season with him and no time to get used to his methods.
Liverpool reached two cup finals with some sweeping performances. The 1-0 win at Stoke in a League Cup semi-final that Mark Hughes’s side was probably favourites to win was in its way as good as the epic comeback against Borussia Dortmund. But by the time of the Europa League final, Liverpool had nothing left to give.
As he prepared for a game between two clubs whose size and talent should surely have earned them more than a couple of League Cups over the last decade, Klopp was still fussing, still not happy with a side that without the encumbrance of European football now seems genuine title contenders.
“Burnley was not good, Manchester United was not good and a lot of people said the last 10 minutes against West Brom could have been better,” he said.
“Nothing what we have done so far has been close to 100 per cent but, if there weren’t things to improve, we could go on holiday all week and just meet up on Saturdays.”
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