On the one hand, judging who is the best of quite frankly, a stellar bunch of candidates to be the best Liverpool manager should be an easy process. You simply look at trophies lifted, games won, goals scored. The length of time also comes into play. But there are a lot of other factors that serve to muddy the water. The place the club were in when that person took over, not just in terms of league position, but the players at his disposal, the moral of the club is a big factor. The state of the competition at that time should not be ignored either. Finally the state of the club after he left should be taken into consideration. All of those factors need to be considered if you are to come up with the best manager of all time. So how does Klopp rate?
The Statistics: In terms of silverware, Bob Paisley is head and shoulders ahead of anyone else, with 19 from his nine seasons at the helm. Bill Shankly and Kenny Dalglish (over his two spells) come in joint second with ten trophies each. Klopp’s haul currently stands at third place, though currently he’s having a tough season, the team is usually on comparison platforms such as oddschecker on the odds to win the Premier League.
When it comes to winning percentage, the German comes out top, with a 61.33 winning percentage from his 256 games in charge. Dalglish is the only other person to get over sixty percent, with 60.93% for his first spell, registering just 47.3% in his second. Paisley’s 57.57% is particularly impressive, achieved as it was over such a sustained period. Shankly incidentally achieved 52.11%.
The points per game (adjusted for when it was just two points for a win) again shows it is Dalglish and Klopp occupying the top two spots. Kenny’s first spell garnered an average of 2.08 points a game to Klopp’s 2.04. The next is Paisley on 1.97.
The way that Liverpool have played in these last two seasons in particular has been something that has been behind a lot of the praise for Klopp’s regime. That is borne out in the goals per game stats. Jurgen’s reign has seen the highest figure of any manager, coming in at 2.06. Dalglish’s first spell is the only other one to get higher than two (2.01).
One stat that may be surprising is the average goal difference per game, as the defence under Klopp has been held up as a corner stone of the team’s success. It is at 1.05, still better than any other manager apart from Dalglish, again in his first spell, when he registered a very impressive 1.17.
The thing with all of those statistics however is that they should not be viewed alone. For every one of those sets of data, the years preceding Klopp’s tenure at the club showed some of the worst, if not the worse figures in the club’s history. Those preceding Dalglish, were healthy looking, he was able to build on the success that Paisley and Shankly (and Fagan) had built. Klopp has not just started to achieve success, but he has had to almost from scratch, built a squad capable of achieving that success.
Not A Case of Buying Success
Know we’ve digested the hard stats, it will be good to look at some softer, less black and white factors. The season before Jurgen arrived at Anfield (2014/2015), the Reds finished 6th. They had lost Suarez the previous summer, and that season was Gerrard’s last, likewise for Raheem Sterling. It was a side filled with decent EPL players, but with very few stars, players you could point at and say were genuine not just match winners, but title winners.
Critics point to the amount of money Klopp has spent (£424,000,000 since his arrival in October 2015, on 23 players). That is considerably lower than the likes of the two Manchester clubs, and you have to look at the comparative base those three clubs were coming from in terms of squad value at that time. And that word value is key to this.
Because of the millions of pounds spent at EPL clubs, it is easy to forget that value is something held so close to the heart of clubs and their boards. It is easy to look at Klopp’s big money buys, but perhaps his biggest success stories have been in the way he has got the most out of not just those, but all members of his squad. Divock Origi for example played a crucial part in the Champions League success a couple of seasons ago. The way he has been able to get Oxlade Chamberlain back looking like the player he looked like he was going to be in his early Arsenal days is also a testament to Klopp’s coaching and man management skills.
Those are the factors that will get lost over time – in much the same way that players’ and managers’ stock improves year after they have actually been active in the game. They are a vital piece of the jigsaw though and certainly should not be ignored when evaluating Klopp’s performance. There is one huge aspect missing, and parallels can be drawn with Arsène Wenger. No matter how good your record, the state you leave the club in does go a hell of a long way to how you are viewed, especially in the short to mid-term. Wenger was undoubtedly one of Arsenal’s greatest managers, but the club he left in a poor state, with the fans divided and a squad not fit for purpose.
For Klopp to be considered the best in Liverpool’s illustrious history, he still has some way to go, and it will not be achieved merely courtesy of winning percentages. He needs to get the club expecting to, and actually winning trophies year on year, and when he does decide hang up his manager’s coat, he needs to leave the club in a position where his successor can continue in the same, or similar vein. This is about the club, not one man. At the moment, the signs are very good, that both Klopp and Liverpool are on their way to achieving that.
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