Watching as he did from the sidelines, only as involved in the carnage playing out before him as any football manager can be, Jurgen Klopp must have had a true, stinging sense of the task at hand.
The collapse against Southampton marked the first occasion in Premier League history that Liverpool have succumbed to the clammy embrace of defeat when leading 2-0 at half-time.
This was a calamity indeed, a perfect symphony of error and ineptitude, a bawling howl, a team drawn and quartered, and one that lay there, after the fantastic trauma had been inflicted, almost numb to their disembowelled remains.
Well, maybe not quite as dramatic as all that. It is, in a harrowingly symmetrical way, a rather satisfying result; certainly for Saints, whose endeavour was rewarded lavishly, but also in that now both Merseyside clubs have capitulated in this exact fashion, from two-goal positions of strength. There is something very much in need of fixing in Scouse country, and its red half requires as much spiritual repair as it does an injection of new bodies.
It’s now been six months since Klopp’s arrival in Liverpool, and his team have undergone a number of micro-evolutions, as well as an almost equal amount of subsequent devolutions. Initially, Klopp’s effect was stark; Liverpool, just a few games into the reign, were suddenly this vivacious unit, all legs whirring and teeth bared – not unlike their manager, a sort of snarling smiler with a tendency to rush suddenly down the touchline- that quickly aimed to out-run and out-hustle all of their opponents.
It soon became clear that this sort of approach had been instated rather too early, that significant investment was needed to make this system function coherently, and that Klopp would have to find another system to fit this strikingly misshapen squad in the meantime. He hasn’t found one yet.
The agonising plight of Daniel Sturridge could almost be used as an overarching parable for the state of this Liverpool side; talented, undoubtedly, with the ability to click into high-gear attacking cycles at any moment. But, paired with this, there’s a pallid fragility, a hugely unnerving sense of risk looming over every step, every sprint, every 2-0 lead.
It has sapped at this club to suffer through this existence, to be in constant fear of their celebrations being interrupted by some ruinous misfortune. Success creates confidence, but it’s the culture at a club that maintains it, that sustains it.
Liverpool rarely escape their own tremulous habits; the 5-4 victory over Norwich was, in many ways, just as worrying as the loss to Saints. The haphazard gratification that came from the “score as many goals as possible and hope” approach that fueled their leaky, break-neck title tilt in 2013-14 must be done away with. This is not a mentality that elite teams, expecting to challenge season after season, can hope to succeed under.
A lot of this is just bad recruitment, or bad squad management. Naturally, Klopp will aim to address the litany of problems this summer, and the Southampton result will have brought the issue of a centre back throbbing hotly to the very front of his mind.
The German replaced Dejan Lovren at halftime against Saints, presumably because he feared that the Croatian was the source of some sort of potential defensive miscarriage. Martin Skrtl was brought on to replace him, and gave away a penalty five minutes into the second half. Skrtl was also partly responsible for Southampton’s third goal, botching a header after Simon Mignolet’s skied clearance.
Unfortunately – particularly for Skrtl, who has been a fine servant to this club – these two players carry around with them the stench of unreliability. No defender can be marred by this, and Klopp will no doubt be dreaming of Mats Hummels, a player he may well try to lure to Anfield in the off-season.
It all culminates in a profound existential problem. Liverpool, over the last few seasons, have danced a mournful jig in the liminal space between contenders and pretenders for the Champions League places. This season, much more than any other, has exposed the vulnerability of England’s footballing aristocracy to the rising mid-table powers. Leicester City, West Ham United, Stoke City and Southampton have all struck blows to the hegemony, and the cracks they’ve made are wide.
Liverpool now have to compete not only with their oligarch-funded rivals, but also with this newly-moneyed middle bracket, in almost every aspect. Xherdan Shaqiri, Dimitri Payet, Manuel Lanzini, N’Golo Kante and Marko Arnautovic. All of these players would improve Liverpool, but the chances of the Reds swooping in and poaching them – let alone identifying them and bringing them to Anfield in the first place – are almost non-existent. West Ham have shown this season how quickly – and to such positive effect – a change in club culture can occur.
It may just be a matter of Klopp’s infectious energy taking a firm enough hold. Liverpool have a particularly eye-catching fixture coming up – at Dortmund, Klopp’s old club. Dortmund, the city, has a population of just over half a million, and they average some of the highest attendance figures in Europe, an army of yellow and black bees 80,000 strong filing in and creating, for 90 minutes, a white-hot point of light in the German Ruhr.
Anfield is filled just as willingly, and Klopp will hope to form as strong a bond with his new Liverpudlian patrons as he did with his old fans. What will be clear on the eighth of April, when Liverpool take the field at the Westfalenstadion, is that they’re standing in the spiritual epicentre of a club, unbeaten this year, that was, not so long ago, wallowing even more acutely than the Reds are now.
In Klopp’s final season there, Dortmund were morosely entertaining thoughts of relegation; now they’re favourites for the Europa League.
So, a new centre back to partner Sakho, a new central midfielder, a winger and a striker. Not a small list, by any means, but a pertinent one taped no doubt to Jurgen Klopp’s fridge, the toilet door and the inside of his eyelids. But before the recruitment starts Klopp must ruminate, as he surely is already, on just how he can coax this club, a little bedraggled and fretful, out of the gloom and return it, standing comfortably and confidently, into the light.
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