shader
Footballguy
It's time to wax poetic about Liverpool. As the greatest club in the world, I figured this team deserved it's own thread.
I'm a soccer newbie. I haven't seen the ebbs and flows of football teams over time as I've seen in the NFL, college football, basketball, etc. I can look back at the records, study history and try to figure it out, but without living it, it's tough.
I said a year ago that the "big four", or the Chelsea/ManU/City/Arsenal stranglehold over the league was ending, and that seems to be true. There is definitely 6 big teams, and everyone else.
What I'm trying to determine is where Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp's philosophy is going to fit in over the next 5 years in this new era of 6 elite epl teams, and how Klopp may need to change his ideas.
His philosophy is simple. He wants to develop young players. He so far has a "net spend" of about 6.5M dollars. In contrast, Brendan Rodgers spent a ridiculous amount of money.
This philosophy served him well at Borussia. He bought Robert Lewandowski, Marco Reus for rather cheap sums. He developed home-grown players into guys that helped Borussia win the Bundesliga twice in a row and get to the CL finals.
Will that work at Liverpool?
The question is whether that philosophy will work. It seems to be working so far. LFC sit 5 points behind Chelsea in 2nd.
But on the flip side, 6th place is only 5 points behind as well.
The premier league is all about money and buying players. Man U wasn't happy and brought in Mourinho. Did they ask Mourinho to re-shape this squad with a few key additions? No, they went out and spent a ridiculous sum on Pogba, they bought Mkhitaryan and Bailly, and they are paying an extremely high salary to one of the top 3 strikers in the world, Zlatan.
Man City have spent somewhere along the lines of 150M bucks on defense recently....and their defense still stinks.
Klopp did spend big bucks on Mane and Wijnaldum, both of whom have been key parts of this team, so it's not as if he won't spend money.
But Klopp seems determined to build a team of like-minded individuals and try to build a youth system that develops players into the mold that he wants. There's a great article over the weekend about his approach, and then he proceeded to play what essentially was an U-23 team in the FA cup game.
Overall, I'm excited about his direction. But my concern is that the fans are going to be overly demanding. It's quite possible that, despite being a really good team, Liverpool could finish in 5th or 6th place. That would be seen as a "total disaster" by the Liverpool fans, many of whom are as deluded and unrealistic as you can get. (a fanbase that reminds me of Alabama pre-Saban)
In that scenario, the fans would demand big money transfers. Even the more rational fans would want to see big changes. But Jurgen isn't the type to go spend 80M on a superstar. He wants to spend 15M on a young and talented up-and-coming player and develop him into a superstar. While that might work at Borussia, where you can USUALLY make CL most years, the epl is a different animal. As mentioned, there are 6 teams fighting for 4 spots. Some years you will miss out.
If Liverpool head into next season on the heels of a 5th place finish and only sign 4-5 young and relatively cheap players, while ManU goes out and gets James Rodriguez or some other high-priced guy, the inferiority complex that LFC fans have will come out in spades and the pressure on Jurgen to deviate from his philosophy will grow.
Basically...will Jurgen's philosophy work in this new premier league that is spending huge amounts of money? Will he have to adjust and go out and spend big money on superstars to compete? Will he be given time by the fanbase to let guys like Divock Origi to develop into a premier striker, or is he going to be forced to just go buy and already developed stud striker?
I'm super excited, I love Klopp, but I also have my concerns as well. I'm interested to see how his philosophy will change in this new era.
Thoughts from LFC fans? Non-LFC fans, be gentle please.
I'm a soccer newbie. I haven't seen the ebbs and flows of football teams over time as I've seen in the NFL, college football, basketball, etc. I can look back at the records, study history and try to figure it out, but without living it, it's tough.
I said a year ago that the "big four", or the Chelsea/ManU/City/Arsenal stranglehold over the league was ending, and that seems to be true. There is definitely 6 big teams, and everyone else.
What I'm trying to determine is where Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp's philosophy is going to fit in over the next 5 years in this new era of 6 elite epl teams, and how Klopp may need to change his ideas.
His philosophy is simple. He wants to develop young players. He so far has a "net spend" of about 6.5M dollars. In contrast, Brendan Rodgers spent a ridiculous amount of money.
This philosophy served him well at Borussia. He bought Robert Lewandowski, Marco Reus for rather cheap sums. He developed home-grown players into guys that helped Borussia win the Bundesliga twice in a row and get to the CL finals.
Will that work at Liverpool?
The question is whether that philosophy will work. It seems to be working so far. LFC sit 5 points behind Chelsea in 2nd.
But on the flip side, 6th place is only 5 points behind as well.
The premier league is all about money and buying players. Man U wasn't happy and brought in Mourinho. Did they ask Mourinho to re-shape this squad with a few key additions? No, they went out and spent a ridiculous sum on Pogba, they bought Mkhitaryan and Bailly, and they are paying an extremely high salary to one of the top 3 strikers in the world, Zlatan.
Man City have spent somewhere along the lines of 150M bucks on defense recently....and their defense still stinks.
Klopp did spend big bucks on Mane and Wijnaldum, both of whom have been key parts of this team, so it's not as if he won't spend money.
But Klopp seems determined to build a team of like-minded individuals and try to build a youth system that develops players into the mold that he wants. There's a great article over the weekend about his approach, and then he proceeded to play what essentially was an U-23 team in the FA cup game.
Overall, I'm excited about his direction. But my concern is that the fans are going to be overly demanding. It's quite possible that, despite being a really good team, Liverpool could finish in 5th or 6th place. That would be seen as a "total disaster" by the Liverpool fans, many of whom are as deluded and unrealistic as you can get. (a fanbase that reminds me of Alabama pre-Saban)
In that scenario, the fans would demand big money transfers. Even the more rational fans would want to see big changes. But Jurgen isn't the type to go spend 80M on a superstar. He wants to spend 15M on a young and talented up-and-coming player and develop him into a superstar. While that might work at Borussia, where you can USUALLY make CL most years, the epl is a different animal. As mentioned, there are 6 teams fighting for 4 spots. Some years you will miss out.
If Liverpool head into next season on the heels of a 5th place finish and only sign 4-5 young and relatively cheap players, while ManU goes out and gets James Rodriguez or some other high-priced guy, the inferiority complex that LFC fans have will come out in spades and the pressure on Jurgen to deviate from his philosophy will grow.
Basically...will Jurgen's philosophy work in this new premier league that is spending huge amounts of money? Will he have to adjust and go out and spend big money on superstars to compete? Will he be given time by the fanbase to let guys like Divock Origi to develop into a premier striker, or is he going to be forced to just go buy and already developed stud striker?
I'm super excited, I love Klopp, but I also have my concerns as well. I'm interested to see how his philosophy will change in this new era.
Thoughts from LFC fans? Non-LFC fans, be gentle please.
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