This week’s Blood Red ponders the importance of Sunday’s visit to Arsenal and just what Liverpool will look like without Jurgen Klopp next season.
Any notion that Liverpool’s players would stumble in the wake of Jurgen Klopp’s bombshell news last week have proven hopelessly misguided. So far, at least.
Perhaps it was more in hope from rival fanbases and opposition managers that the Premier League leaders would suddenly suffer in the immediate aftermath of Klopp’s end-of-season exit becoming public knowledge but the response has been an emphatic one from the players themselves in the early going.
In the two games played since Klopp rocked the football world last Friday, the Reds have booked their passage to the fifth round of the FA Cup while swatting aside Chelsea to strengthen their Premier League lead, which now stands at five points once more.
Nine goals scored in back-to-back Anfield victories has quietened chatter that Klopp’s shock decision would derail the team’s progress but Sunday’s visit to Arsenal offers an entirely different prospect.
There is merit in the belief that a point away at the Emirates would be a decent one but when a resurgent Manchester City are once nipping at your heels, the idea of a draw being nothing more than a well-dressed defeat is certainly a pertinent point as well.
Knowing Klopp’s Liverpool as well as these pages do, it’s unlikely a passive, reactive approach will be taken against Mikel Arteta’s men and when you consider that a second win in a month at the Emirates would leave Sunday’s hosts eight points adrift of the summit, does this game suddenly become more of a must-not-lose for the home side than the visitors?
It’s an interesting psychological wrinkle to Sunday’s game and one Arteta will be fretting about as an in-form Liverpool roll into town on the back of a superb start to 2024 that has seen them win all three Premier League games by a scoreline of 12-3.
Having lost just once in over ten months of Premier League action, beating Klopp’s side remains a daunting prospect, whoever the opposition manager is and Arteta has ample food for thought ahead of this one.
The returns of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dominik Szoboszlai, Andy Robertson and Alexis Mac Allister have reinforced both the strength in depth available to Klopp and the overall ability of a squad that another manager will have the pleasure of inheriting later this year.
Quite what Liverpool look like in a post-Klopp world will only be truly known later this year but the replacement will have few qualms about the quality at their disposal and it is one of the reasons why the current boss is so positive that the end of the line is nearing.
Having privately vowed to rebuild the team in the wake of last season’s disappointing campaign, Klopp feels as though that job is already done, whatever happens between now and the end of this increasingly promising term.
With Ibrahima Konate, Darwin Nunez, Joe Gomez, Cody Gakpo, Alexander-Arnold, Szoboszlai and Mac Allister all aged between 23 and 26, Liverpool are well positioned for the coming years. Add in the emerging talents like the 20-year-old duo of Jarell Quansah and Conor Bradley alongside exciting teenagers like Kaide Gordon and Ben Doak and the club are set up to prosper with further shrewd, sizable investment.
Much like the rest of this season, success will depend on how they adapt to a Klopp-less dugout but the manager is doing his utmost to ensure any nosedive in fortunes cannot ever be levelled at his door.
While Alex Ferguson, rightly or wrongly, took some of the flak for the overall state of the Manchester United squad upon his 2013 departure when his replacement, David Moyes, started to flounder, Klopp’s Liverpool appear to be in rude health for the long term; set up to continue thriving in his absence, even if there will be some inevitable teething problems at various points.
And as the manager provided answers to questions at another press conference on Friday, it was impossible to shake the belief he was sending out one of his final, statesmanlike addresses to everyone associated with the club as a huge, potentially historic final three months kicks off with a blockbuster fixture this weekend.
“It is about us digging deep into the season, keep going, hold your breath, buckle up and go for it,” he said. “That’s what we are here for with these fantastic players.”
Liverpool supporters have no alternative but to listen to Klopp once more. It’s time to buckle up, starting with Arsenal on Sunday.
