Liverpool FC’s Inconsistency Is Because Of Its Intensity

After Liverpool FC’s defeat to Arsenal, an interview with manager Jurgen Klopp by Swedish broadcaster Viaplay blew up on social media.

It wasn’t that the coach said anything particularly controversial in his chat with former Premier League star Jan Aage Fjortoft, it was how he looked.

A man known for his energy, whether that be enthusiasm or anger, Klopp appeared to be drained.

Face drawn and eyes glazed, he went through the motions, sighing about refereeing decisions and the inability of his side to clear the ball.

A tired performance at the end of a repetitive press junket would be easy to dismiss were it not for the context of how the Liverpool team has been performing.

For the second time in a fortnight, the side had come from behind to establish itself against Arsenal only to inexplicably switching off and letting the momentum swing back in its opponent’s favor.

It was a pattern not limited to individual games, rather it’s been the theme of the season so far.

Impressive back-to-back wins against Newcastle United and Bournemouth were followed by a draw at rivals Everton and defeat by Napoli, while consecutive Champions League victories against Ajax and Rangers preceded disappointing results in the Premier League

Klopp made no bones about it when asked by another broadcaster, Qatari giant BeIN Sports, if this patchy form had ruined Liverpool’s chances of winning the Premier League title.

“If any miracle happens in the next few months all of sudden [it would be] because all the others start to lose all of their games and we start winning,” he said.

Adding: “That is the first thing we have to do, then we would be in contention again. We can talk but this is really not our problem. We understand the situation, we have other problems. We have to find a way to win football games consistently and that hasn’t worked out yet this season.”

Much has been made of the fact Klopp is entering his seventh season at Anfield, which was the moment that both his previous reigns at Mainz and Borussia Dortmund came to an end.

The German may be experiencing something similar, but a much more obvious answer to the inconsistency lies in one of the more fundamental aspects of the team’s recent successes.

‘Our identity is intensity’

Outside Liverpool’s home dressing room a mantra, which aptly describes Jurgen Klopp’s most successful teams, is written on the wall; “Our identity is intensity.”

The pioneer of ‘gegenpressing’ or counter-pressing in British soccer, Liverpool’s triumphs under the German have come from their ability to win the ball from opponents high up the pitch and squeeze the game into the opponent’s half.

It’s a strategy that requires not only huge physical exertion but high levels of concentration. Liverpool attackers don’t just chase defenders into the corner flag, they take the ball off them and create something themselves.

Klopp’s assistant Pep Lijnders explained the intensity behind this successful tactic was generated through practice and teaching.

“When a team lose the ball in training, you will hear me, Jurgen screaming: ‘Go! Get it back! Don’t stop!’ It’s so loud they’ll even hear that in Manchester,” Lijnders said previously.

“They have to understand why it’s so important. That power and emotion is our game. Because our identity is intensity. That comes back in every drill. And that’s what I like about coaching: that you can stimulate certain common behavior and create a lot by specific team training. That’s what I live for.”

The benefits of such a strategy are clear to see, last season Liverpool played the maximum number of games it could, reaching the finals of both domestic cups and the Champions League.

Ultimately, it missed out on the title by one point and lost Europe’s premier competition to Real Madrid, but the evidence was clear, even six years after his arrival, Klopp’s ‘intensity’ mantra was still effective.

Perhaps, after a 63-game season, maintaining those levels was an impossibility. But it’s hard to argue that this year, more than any other time under Klopp, energy is not what it was.

As former Liverpool striker Robbie Fowler pointed out in his regular newspaper column, the statistics showed the players were not exerting themselves to the same level as previous years.

“Less distance covered than every opponent so far this season, less intense runs, less sprints,” he wrote, “why? It’s not that they suddenly can’t run, that’s far too simplistic. Maybe Klopp has decided to try and control games, run less to see them through a ridiculous season with a bloody World Cup in the middle.”

If the German is moving away from his intensity philosophy that’s a significant shift, but considering the factors Fowler highlights, maybe a necessary one.

More broadly speaking, Klopp’s team is a lot older than it once was and his probably unable to make the same physical demands on players who are no longer in their 20s.

Either way, the intense approach either needs to be adapted or recaptured because, currently, the only outcome it produces is inconsistency.