All the talk last summer was that Liverpool had addressed their goalscoring woes.
The squad had been bolstered by nearly £80million worth of attacking talent.
A major overhaul of the striking department saw Mario Balotelli, Fabio Borini and Rickie Lambert shown the door.
Christian Benteke, Roberto Firmino and Danny Ings were snapped up to compliment Daniel Sturridge, while Divock Origi arrived at Anfield following his season-long loan at Lille.
However, rather than transform Liverpool’s fortunes in the final third, their plight has actually deepened as they limp towards the midway point of the campaign.
Having scored just 52 league goals in 2014/15, the Reds have managed only 20 in 17 Premier League matches this term. Only Aston Villa, Swansea, Sunderland, Newcastle, West Brom and Stoke in the top flight have scored fewer.
Sunday’s miserable 3-0 defeat at Watford was the fifth time this season the Reds have fired blanks. A problem which dogged the final 18 months of Brendan Rodgers’ reign is now a growing concern for Jurgen Klopp.
Philippe Coutinho is Liverpool’s leading scorer with five league goals as the club’s frontmen continue to misfire.
Christian Benteke
The Belgium international hasn’t come close to living up to the hype since his £32.5million move from Aston Villa.
The second most expensive signing in the club’s history has scored five goals in 17 appearances - four in 14 games in the Premier League.
Rodgers was the driving force behind signing Benteke as he finally convinced owners Fenway Sports Group to trigger his release clause after a summer-long chase.
There was a dream start for the 6ft 3ins frontman as he got the winner on his home debut against Bournemouth and then bagged a stunning consolation in the defeat at Old Trafford.
However, injuries hampered his progress and since Klopp’s appointment doubts over Benteke’s ability to fit the German’s style have continued to grow with a run of lifeless performances.
Klopp demands a tireless work rate from his strikers but Benteke has been too static. Dropped for the trip to Vicarage Road, Benteke then saw Origi brought off the bench before he finally got the nod himself late on.
Roberto Firmino
Liverpool believed they had pulled off a major coup when chief executive Ian Ayre returned from Chile with the signature of Firmino during the Copa America.
The Brazil international attacker had scored 49 goals and produced nearly as many assists during a four-and-a-half year stint in Germany with Hoffenheim.
He cost the Reds an initial fee of £21million, rising to £29million with various add-ons.
Legendary fellow countryman Ronaldinho said: “For Liverpool to have Coutinho and Firmino is a big achievement for them. The creativity, intelligence and goals they have between them can change Liverpool as a team. It is a big sign of intent.”
However, five months on, Firmino it’s been a baptism of fire for the 24-year-old. His 20 appearances in all competitions have yielded just one goal.
There have only been fleeting glimpses of his undoubted ability. Shunted out wide in a struggling team under Rodgers, he looked like a fish out of water before cracking a bone in his back and being sidelined for a month.
The new manager knew him well from his time in Germany. “I’d say a year ago for a few months for sure he was the best player in the Bundesliga,” Klopp raved shortly after his appointment. “When I heard Liverpool took him, I thought ‘good choice’.”
His eye-catching performance in the 4-1 rout of Manchester City last month was hailed as the night when he truly announced himself on the Premier League stage. He created the first two goals and then bagged the third himself but it proved to be a false dawn.
Since then standards have slipped and he was woeful after being asked to lead the line against Watford.
Daniel Sturridge
This was supposed to be the season when the England international finally put his injury woes behind him. The hip surgery he underwent back in May was supposed to have cured his ills.
However, the reality is that Liverpool still can’t count on Sturridge, whose body continues to repeatedly let him down. He has made just four starts and two substitute appearances this season.
Classy doubles against Aston Villa in the Premier League and Southampton in the League Cup provided timely reminders of his quality but on each occasion he broke down soon after.
When Luis Suarez was sold to Barcelona in the summer of 2014, Sturridge was expected to become the focal point of the Liverpool attack. However, since the prolific Uruguayan frontman departed, Sturridge has started just 16 of the Reds’ 84 fixtures.
A bruised knee sustained in training and then a foot problem kept him sidelined for the first nine matches of Klopp’s reign. He has played just 110 minutes of football since with a hamstring strain suffered at Newcastle a fortnight ago putting him back on the treatment table.
Klopp hoped he would be available for the trip to Watford but he has yet to resume full training.
Divock Origi
The young Belgian striker has made progress after a testing start to his Liverpool career. Signed for £10million following the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Origi finally joined the Reds in July after completing a season-long loan with Lille.
The 20-year-old frontman was always going to start off down the pecking order as he got to grips with the demands of English football.
Origi made just one brief league appearance under Rodgers but since Klopp has taken over his opportunities to shine have been more frequent.
He started Klopp’s first game at Tottenham and has grown in confidence since. A classy hat-trick in the 6-1 thrashing of Southampton in the League Cup was followed by his dramatic late equaliser in the 2-2 league draw with West Brom.
In eight starts and seven sub appearances in all competitions he has scored four goals.
Origi is still raw but his potential is clear. His willingness to close down space and stretch defenders has endeared him to Klopp and fans alike. He looks well placed to kick on in the second half of the campaign.
Danny Ings
Liverpool suffered a devastating blow when the former Burnley striker was ruled out of the rest of the season after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament in mid-October.
At the time Ings was in the form of his life. He had not only established himself in the Liverpool side, he had also been rewarded with a full England debut against Lithuania.
Stuck on the bench in the early weeks of the season, Ings made an instant impact after coming off the bench against Norwich when he netted in front of the Kop.
When he marked his first taste of the Merseyside derby with the opening goal at Goodison, he had scored three in five starts for the Reds with a further three substitute appearances.
The 23-year-old frontman looked a perfect fit for Klopp with his unwavering commitment and burning desire to chase lost causes.
However, during his first training session with the German coach Ings pulled up and a scan delivered the crushing news that his season was over. He has been sorely missed.
A tribunal will decide next month how much Liverpool must pay Burnley for Ings. The Reds value him at around £6million but the Clarets want around double that figure.
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How Can Jurgen Klopp Improve His Liverpool Squad Without Spending Millions?
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.[...]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.
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