Jurgen Klopp not panicking - but should he be?
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Published 22/09/2017 at 11:39 GMT+1
Jurgen Klopp insists that he is not panicking after a poor run of results but should he be? Marcus Foley investigates.
Jurgen Klopp not panicking but should be?
Image credit: Getty Images
WHAT HAPPENED?
Liverpool are bad. Worse than Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool bad.
Klopp, however, thinks there is no need to panic.
WHAT KLOPP SAID
"You really think there would be one percent of a reason that I would panic?" Klopp said, as reported by ESPN.
"It's football. We have eight points. In four games we were the clear better side but we didn't get the results.
"Now we could panic because of not getting the results or we say 'It's still not good enough playing football.' Do you think any team in the world loves playing against us in this moment?
Or hope like Burnley that they only have to go for set-pieces and you get whatever you want and you can concede 35 shots on target or whatever and it's clear you will be lucky? It's not like this.
"It's always the same, 'playing good football you have no results,' 'the same defending problems like 500 years ago.' You can talk about this but I cannot think like this.
I'm not in [a] panic. I don't think that is the main message at the moment, not to get in [a] panic because I cannot imagine that anybody thinks about this.
OUR VIEW
Panic? No. However, Klopp should be concerned. Quite seriously concerned. They sit eighth in the table on eight points, some five points behind the early pacesetters in Manchester.
Liverpool spent in the region of £80 million in the summer transfer window. Yet, only £8 million went on the defence – and that was on Hull left-back Andrew Robertson.
The Reds were devastating in attack last season. Had they not signed Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain or Mohamed Salah, they would have been devastating in attack this season.
Their base attempt to sign Virgil van Dijk clearly indicates that Klopp and Liverpool knew they needed to address that area. Yet once it became apparent that the Van Dijk deal would not go through, it seemed that the Reds had no contingency signing. It was Van Dijk or bust. And it has well and truly been bust.
Their designs on a title challenge were fatally undermined by a leaky defence last season and Liverpool have done next to nothing to address it. Not in the transfer market; not on the training pitch.
Should Liverpool miss out on the top four then Klopp’s position would come under serious threat. Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester City and Manchester United have all improved while Liverpool have, going on their performances thus far, stood still.
Panic might be too strong a word right now but improvement is needed and quickly.
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