Caporegime
Henderson missing from the centre has been a massive issue for us but even with him in midfield, Klopp's tactics and his expectation of our players are a bigger issue now. I've said a number of times, this is exactly like his last two years at Dortmund but people always want to bring up injuries or refereeing decisions.
Article from The Guardian from 2014 that could easily be about Liverpool and this season.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/dec/23/borussia-dortmund-jurgen-klopp-bundesliga
Point 3 of this article is the biggest issue for us now.
https://www.espn.co.uk/football/clu...why-jurgen-klopp-is-leaving-borussia-dortmund
Article from The Guardian from 2014 that could easily be about Liverpool and this season.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/dec/23/borussia-dortmund-jurgen-klopp-bundesliga
Dortmund’s game is all about verticality and quick shots on goal. Prising deep teams open is, not surprisingly, very difficult for them. A ‘plan b’ is easy for journalists to suggest but Dortmund-based Freddie Röckenhaus, of Süddeutsche Zeitung, is surely right to question whether Klopp has neglected to develop different, more mature facets to their game. “It could be that they have failed to add a bit of coolness to the underdog style of the boom years,” he wrote. “Dortmund don’t seem to be able to cut open teams with a surgical knife, unlike other top teams. At times, one feels that BVB are caught up in eternal adolescence and power-sapping exuberance, and that a more grown-up football style is not even wanted”.
It’s worth remembering at this point that Klopp had vowed to employ even more aggressive tactics before the start of the season. He’d promised to create a “pressing machine”. To that extent, Dortmund have played a lot of 4-4-2 this season. It’s been football without a safety net, reliant on the individual class of his defenders to cope in situations with numerical parity or worse. Injuries and loss of form for just about every defender in the squad has led to failure. So what’s next?
But there’s a second, deeper worry here, one that will render the next six weeks off perhaps even more restless for everyone at the club than a look at the table. Coaches who demand Klopp’s level of work and tactical discipline from their players don’t tend to last very long at any particular club. Think Guardiola, José Mourinho, Marcelo Bielsa, even Ralf Rangnick: wear and tear - physically, mentally and in terms of relationships - always become a problem before too long.
Point 3 of this article is the biggest issue for us now.
https://www.espn.co.uk/football/clu...why-jurgen-klopp-is-leaving-borussia-dortmund
3. Failure to implement a Plan B
Football is a fast-moving business. What is new today will be dated tomorrow. What is spectacular today will be punished tomorrow. The young Borussia Dortmund early on in the Klopp era needed only a handful of seconds from winning the ball to scoring, or at least creating chances. They had the player, ruthless when winning the ball, but also able to play the clear pass. Sometimes long, sometimes short, always finding small pockets of space.
But the players grew older and teams began to test new tactics against Borussia Dortmund. At first, they attacked Mats Hummels, who was doing all the build-up play from the unusual centre-back position. That worked to parts. They also began handing possession to BVB, and learned that by sitting deep this also meant freeing themselves from Dortmund's Gegenpressing. The last time that Dortmund press worked was in the first match of this season's Champions League when a fantastic BVB side stormed past Arsenal. But even in the Bundesliga, clubs like Bayern only handed the ball to Dortmund. Klopp, citing a difficult preseason, had no answer, even after the winter break.