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Your support makes all the difference.When Jürgen Klopp prowls the touchline bellowing instructions, the man who is best placed to pass them on – for one half at least – is Nathaniel Clyne.
“If he has got something to say, you can hear him,” said Liverpool’s right-back. “He is always shouting out tactics, always encouraging players to run faster and put more effort into the game.”
That is Klopp’s mantra – speed, power, drawing the opposition in and then hitting them at pace.
Gegenpressing, the style of play that brought two Bundesliga titles to Borussia Dortmund, is not actually that different to the tactics with which Liverpool so nearly won the league under Brendan Rodgers last year.
What Klopp adds is the confidence that comes with having lifted major titles, something Rodgers for all his skills as a tactical innovator never possessed.
He also has an inner rage for perfection. When quizzed about the stunning 4-1 rout of Manchester City last month, Klopp mentioned Liverpool’s defending still lacked something. When asked how satisfied he was with just one defeat in his opening 10 matches, he replied: “I would really like to change my personality but I can’t forget this fucking loss against Crystal Palace.”
Clyne said: “He has tried to make me more confident in my ability. To go forward and express myself. He keeps telling me not to hold back. He sees my role as definitely pressing, setting the trap for the opposition and getting forward on the pitch.”
It may not be coincidence that the two most spectacular results of Klopp’s short time at Liverpool have come away from Anfield, at Chelsea and Manchester City, teams he would expect to have most of the possession.
Southampton, Clyne’s former club, who Liverpool meet in tonight’s Capital One Cup quarter-final, play a similar kind of game to Klopp’s system, although the personality of the Saints manager is very different. “Quieter, much quieter,” is how Clyne describes Ronald Koeman.
Not too long after Koeman allowed Clyne to leave one great English port for another, the defender was badly in need of some of Klopp’s ebullience. His first interview after leaving Southampton in the summer was with Liverpool’s own television station and he enthused over the fact that Rodgers had signed him and promised high-intensity individual sessions at Melwood. Clyne talked of Rodgers’ record with young players and how the Ulsterman would draw the best from him. Within three months, Rodgers had been fired.
“Maybe I wasn’t as confident as I should have been,” said Clyne. “When you come to a new club, you hold back and don’t take so many risks. Now I’ve played a few games I can take more risks. I can go out there and express myself and, because he has confidence, you don’t worry if you lose the ball – you just go out and win it back again.”
Clyne’s only real run in the League Cup came with Crystal Palace in the midst of a season that saw them finish 17th in the Championship in 2011-12.
Inspired by Wilfried Zaha, they overcame Manchester United at Old Trafford in the quarter-finals before losing the semi to Cardiff on penalties. Had Crystal Palace come through, they would have met Liverpool in the final.
The 2012 League Cup is the only piece of silverware brought back to Anfield in almost a decade. The risk is that chasing this and other baubles will endanger what Liverpool’s owners really crave – the Champions League and its revenue streams.
“Nobody has said to me: “Yeah, go out of the League Cup so we have more time to train’,” said Klopp. “I knew that you played very often when I came here and that is what we are doing. You have no winter break but I knew that already.”
January will be interesting for other reasons. In his first winter transfer window at Dortmund, Klopp sold six, bought two and recalled Nuri Sahin from his loan spell at Feyenoord.
This time, despite revealing he has no agreement preventing him from buying his former Dortmund players, Klopp will be far less radical. Liverpool’s most obvious weakness is the lack of a world-class goalkeeper. Rodgers was often sceptical of Simon Mignolet’s ability but Klopp, linked with Cologne’s Timo Horn and Stoke’s Jack Butland, has more faith, publicly at least.
“I am sorry to kill your stories about German goalkeepers and goalkeepers from Stoke,” he said. “But we are not looking for another goalkeeper.
“I have had a lot of goalkeepers over the past few years and Simon Mignolet is one of the smartest I have ever had. He is completely open and young enough to develop.”
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