Frank Lampard has said that three things have contributed to Liverpool’s success under Jurgen Klopp.
What did he say?
The Chelsea boss was talking ahead of the Blues’ match against Arsenal on Tuesday, and was responding to sarcastic comments from Roy Keane saying that he has “all the answers” at Stamford Bridge.
That led to the former Derby County boss talking about the Reds’ rise to the top. He explained: “Where they were coming from on Liverpool, my feeling was they have a great manager and a great team.
“Jurgen Klopp doesn’t run 70 yards up the pitch and stick that in the net, but what he does is coach and create an environment and an atmosphere so it’s two ways – players and coaching.
“So that’s probably, as I saw it, a mixture of young players who have come through and improved and he takes credit for that, some fantastic recruitment of some players who have certainly improved over the course of that four years and then some big-hitting signings that really hit home and came in at the right time.
“So it’s a beautiful model to look at. Everybody’s different, but he has had time and opportunity to bring in players for his style and the way he wants to play. So that’s an incredible story.
“When it comes to Ole (Solskjaer) or myself, you do want time and you do want put all those things in place, young players that take time to develop and get better, recruitment will be hugely important over the next two windows, and we hope, not in trying to follow a Liverpool model, that we get things right and we move forward.”
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A beautiful model
Indeed, it has been a long process for Liverpool, and it is something that plenty of other clubs should probably take inspiration from, whether Lampard wants to admit that or not. Those three different facets of putting their squad together underneath the 52-year-old – bringing through young players, such as Trent Alexander-Arnold, improving new signings such as Georginio Wijnaldum and Andrew Robertson, whose Transfermarkt values have risen by £27m and £65.7m respectively under Klopp, and then spending the big bucks on the likes of Alisson (£67m) and Virgil van Dijk (£75m) – have all contributed to their success.
That does not just come from Klopp, though – Liverpool are organised and prepared to do their business in the best possible away.
Often, they pinpoint their targets very early, and get their signings done even before the transfer window opens – look at the arrivals of van Dijk and Takumi Minamino, for example. At Chelsea and Manchester United, that is not the case – the former challenged their transfer ban, only to make zero signings so far despite it being reduced, whilst the Red Devils’ pursuit of Bruno Fernandes gives an insight into the haphazard way they appear to be working.
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Most importantly, though, he has been given that time to mould the team into how he wants it.
If Chelsea and United want to try and begin to emulate that success, that’s what they must do with their current bosses – the latter’s problems may lie deeper than that, but giving Solskjaer time may help rather than bringing in another big name. Right now, Klopp and the Reds are the inspiration: the rest of the Premier League could do a lot worse than copying them.
Elsewhere, Neil Custis dismisses Liverpool’s recent form.