Sunday's 3-0 defeat away to Watford provided Jurgen Klopp with another dose of realism as he contends with life in the Premier League, closing in on his third month in charge of Liverpool. The German will have been fully aware of the challenges he would face on replacing the outgoing Brendan Rodgers in October, but the multitude of flaws on show at Vicarage Road underlined significant room for improvement on Merseyside.
But, according to the Telegraph's Chris Bascombe, this is unlikely to see Klopp add to his squad in the January transfer window, despite reported moves for both Red Star Belgrade midfielder Marko Grujic and Schalke defender Joel Matip in the offing:
Klopp was already working on moves for a midfielder and centre-half which, although completed next month, will not bring the players to the club until next summer.
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Liverpool’s hierarchy are ready to make further funds available immediately if the new manager makes a request, but Klopp has made it known he wants to give his squad the rest of the campaign to prove themselves.
With a League Cup semi-final on the immediate horizon the latest setbacks are seen as inevitable bumps in the road as the new manager makes a more thorough assessment of his long-term needs.
This may disappoint supporters itching for a major squad overhaul in the winter, but Klopp has long stood as a bastion of frugality, preferring to mould talented players into a cohesive, successful unit—as he proved during his time at Borussia Dortmund, rarely sanctioning big-money signings. The 48-year-old has a belief in his current crop, and suppressing expectation for the season may be for the best in the long term.
Nevertheless, as Philippe Coutinho told David Lynch of the club'sofficial website this week, Liverpool are a club with perennial aspirations to secure silverware, saying "we're all focused on fighting for the trophies and I think we have a great chance in the competitions we're in this year."
So how can Klopp improve his squad without significant spending, both in January and moving into the future?
Training-Ground Work
Klopp's arrival at Liverpool brought speculation from all angles as to how he was going to change his side's approach on the field of play, with the famed high-intensity, attacking football of his seven-year reign at Dortmund at the forefront, with supporters frantically researching terms such as "gegenpressing."
As with any change in manager, Klopp's appointment saw a change in emphasis at Liverpool's training ground, as Alberto Moreno explained at the beginning of December.
"With Klopp the training sessions are all about tactics, in order to have the team well-positioned on the pitch, and to know how and when to press," he told Spanish radio station Cadena Cope (h/tKristian Walsh in the Liverpool Echo). "He doesn’t do games or things like that. It’s all tactical. It’s what he likes and what we work."
Though Moreno went on the describe these sessions as "boring," the Spaniard highlighted the Reds' immediate improvement as testimony to their worth, saying "they are the ones that give results on the pitch."
Moreno is not the only player to discuss Klopp's work on the training field following his arrival, with Dejan Lovren going into more depth in a recent interview reported by David Lynch of the club's official website:
He certainly has strong ideas and we have noticed a difference.
Each manager has a different way of training and his own thoughts on how he wants us to play. I believe we have adapted very quickly as a squad.
We are definitely working hard on the training ground but now it is all about the mentality. I think the English and the Germans are different in this aspect.
It is a big thing to change, but I think the stats and so on show that we have been doing okay with Jurgen so far.
As Bascombe discussed, Klopp's training methods have largely resulted in an improved performance on the field—particularly in terms of Liverpool's distance run as a collective; something that Klopp focusses heavily on.
"Liverpool’s running statistics were elevated to impressive levels beyond 115 kilometres (71 miles) per game when Klopp took over in October," he detailed, "but the German coach will be perturbed to discover a significant drop against Watford, where Liverpool’s players covered 107.5 kilometres (67 miles) in the 3-0 defeat."
Typically, Liverpool are running further, tackling harder and attacking with more vibrancy than the latter months of Rodgers' spell in charge, but as Bascombe attests, the defeat to Watford underlines a lack of consistency at this stage.
This may well be due to a fatigue pervading the squad, and this is something Klopp could address when it comes to his more injury-prone talents, with training regimes potentially tailored to certain individuals, with both Daniel Sturridge and Mamadou Sakho—key players under Klopp and central to any future success—particularly susceptible to muscular injuries that could be linked to overexertion.
On the whole, however, the German's good work should continue, and it can be argued that the Reds' Vicarage Road loss was more to do with their mentality than their physical conditioning.
Foster a Winning Mentality
Speaking to Talksport's Stan Collymore after Sunday's victory over Liverpool, Watford striker and captain Troy Deeney said:
The most impressive thing about our performance today is that we bullied them. They just didn’t fancy the fight.
We scored after a few minutes which settled the nerves and then we dominated. [Martin] Skrtel went off, he didn’t fancy it, and it was a great victory.
We’ve shown we’re not scared of anybody. We were written off by everybody at the start of the season. We’ve had all these questioned fired at us, 'can we score goals, are we good enough for the Premier League, can we avoid relegation', and we’ve answered them tenfold.
As Deeney suggests, Liverpool underestimated the Hornets, and the brutish Englishman, along with two-goal star Odion Ighalo and the likes of Etienne Capoue, Almen Abdi and Nathan Ake, overran the Reds as a result.
Liverpool showed no steel, with disappointing contributions from a number of senior players such as Skrtel, Lucas Leiva—both at fault for Ighalo's first goal—Adam Lallana and even Coutinho, who told the club's official website in November that "though I’m young, I feel like a senior player now."
Juxtaposed miserably by the increasingly animated, immeasurably passionate Klopp on the touchline, the German's squad crumbled under pressure from a hardworking Watford outfit. This is something that he will look to avoid in the future, and to do so, Klopp must foster a winning mentality at Liverpool.
So far under Klopp, Liverpool's away form has been substantially improved, with big victories at Chelsea, Manchester City and Southampton underlining just how devastating the German's sides can be when in full flow, and as Coutinho, Lallana and Roberto Firmino tore apart City at the Etihad Stadium, Klopp will have been encouraged by their ruthless streak.
This is something seen in flashes in the 2-2 draw at home to West Bromwich Albion, too, with Divock Origi's late, long-range equaliser sparking a deafening reaction from the stands, with the Anfield support finally reaching Klopp's expectations.
The German rewarded their efforts by herding his side over to the Kop to salute them at full-time, and Liverpool need more of this as he looks to unite a fractured club.
This was a symbol of a restored belief, and while defeat to Watford may have betrayed this as superficial, these slow steps are what Klopp must continue to take to ensure his side develop that winning mentality—a belief, reinforced by supporters, that they can triumph in adversity.
As a long-term measure, however, it may be that Klopp will be required to add to his squad.
Trawl the Free-Transfer Market
As his time at Dortmund proved, Klopp is a purveyor of the bargain signing, with Ilkay Gundogan, Nuri Sahin, Robert Lewandowski, Shinji Kagawa, Lukasz Piszczek, Mats Hummels, Sven Bender, Kevin Grosskreutz, Neven Subotic and Felipe Santana all joining the club for below £5 million.
Each went on to play a key role under Klopp, with the free-transfer signing of Piszczek serving as a reminder of the benefits of trawling the market for expiring contracts and free agents.
This looks set to continue at Liverpool, with Klopp's projected move for Matip, on the expiry of his current deal with Schalke, representing a shrewd move by the German; a versatile, 24-year-old defender, Matip can strengthen Klopp's squad in a number of positions without breaking the bank.
If Matip joins the Reds in the summer, this is one to be followed, as the free-transfer market will be a fruitful one.
Experienced talents such as Valencia's Sofiane Feghouli, Sevilla's Ever Banega and Inter Milan goalkeeper Samir Handanovic would boost Klopp's squad significantly, while Marseille centre-back Nicolas N'Koulou would provide Klopp with the ideal partner for Sakho at centre-back.
N'Koulou's team-mate, goalkeeper Steve Mandanda, has suffered a drop in form in recent seasons, but could be drafted in to bolster Klopp's options between the sticks, with both Simon Mignolet and Adam Bogdan lacking the quality required to thrive in the long term;Fiorentina left-back Marcos Alonso would be a similar risk, but the Spaniard would offer much-needed competition for Moreno on that defensive flank.
Meanwhile, with one eye on the future, Partizan Belgrade winger Andrija Zivkovic (19), Feyenoord's European Golden Boy nominee Tonny Vilhena (20), Leeds United's Sam Byram (22) and River Plate centre-back Eder Alvarez Balanta (22) are all young players with potential to star at the top level of European football—all approaching the end of their current deals.
Moving to sign any of these prospective free agents would allow Klopp to flesh out his squad without sanctioning a big-money outlay—providing a stark contrast to Rodgers' reign, with a potential £32.5 million mistake looming over his successor in Christian Benteke.
Recent results may have dampened spirits on Merseyside, but with a few sensible tweaks, Klopp can continue to improve his side.
Crucially, this can be done without wasting millions in the transfer market.
