O n this weekend four years ago, Jürgen Klopp got off the bus at White Hart Lane before his first game as Liverpool manager to an extraordinary clamour. Fans packed the street outside the car park just to see him, and journalists packed the opposite pavement just to see them. The sense of excitement and expectation was palpable – and it has been justified. Liverpool have undergone a remarkable transformation since.
Liverpool went into that fixture 10th in the Premier League table; they go into Sunday’s game at Old Trafford as league leaders and European champions. Of Klopp’s 18-man match-day squad four years ago, three – James Milner, Adam Lallana and Divock Origi –are still at the club. There has been a radical overhaul of personnel and playing style.
The same cannot be said of Manchester United, who won 3-0 away at Everton that day. Seven of Louis van Gaal’s match-day squad remain, plus Chris Smalling on loan at Roma.
But it’s not just about personnel at United. There is still the same disjointedness, the same dysfunction, the same lack of pace and invention in midfield. At least back then, it could be argued they were reaching towards a style, hauling themselves, however sluggishly, through Van Gaal’s process. But other than a focus on youth – which is less a tactical philosophy than an economic model, and at times, it feels, a means of deferring judgment, a pre-emptive excuse – it’s far from clear what is Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s preferred playing style.
There is a reluctance at Old Trafford to impose an approach on a manager, a feeling he should be free to determine his own philosophy, which could explain why the club are still to appoint a sporting director. That becomes problematic, though, when the manager appears to have little plan other than transferring the ball rapidly from back to front. If there is a detailed focus on pressing shape and semi‑automated passing sequences – such as are practised by Liverpool and Manchester City – there is little evidence of it on the pitch.
Even Solskjær seems to have lost faith, balefully acknowledging before the dismal defeat at Newcastle: “We’re not in the 90s any more.” Yet his whole shtick had been based on Fergie nostalgia. It wasn’t fans or pundits who endlessly invoked the spirit of Barcelona or took the players to train at the Cliff. The world has moved on and while it’s probably as well Solskjær has belatedly realised that there is little sense that anything lies beneath.
At St James’ Park, he looked ashen, face and hair slowly turning to the same sickly grey. It seems Solskjær will endure in the job for a few weeks yet, if only because the dismissal of a fourth manager in five and a half years would be such an obvious indication of failure that it might begin to take the shine off United’s admittedly remarkable commercial growth.
It is hard, though, to see the end being long-deferred. The performance at Newcastle was historically bad, the sort of game that often marks the point of no return for a manager. Frank O’Farrell was sacked three days after a similarly awful display at Crystal Palace in December 1972 and Alex Ferguson survived the 5-1 defeat at Manchester City in September 1989 only because of his extraordinary resilience and self-belief.
But to focus on the manager is perhaps to miss the wider point. Doing so has perhaps been United’s problem since Ferguson retired in 2013. The English game in general has always lionised the boss, perhaps because at the time football became a mass-market event with the first broadcast of Match of the Day in 1964, it was blessed by so many forceful leaders, each with their own style and quirks: Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Don Revie, and soon Brian Clough, Tommy Docherty and Malcolm Allison. Technocratic detail seemed less important than having a messiah in the dugout.
United, having had two such figures in Busby and Ferguson (three if you include Docherty, who had just won the 1977 FA Cup with a vibrant young side when he was sacked for a relationship with the physio’s wife), are perhaps more susceptible to that myth than most, constantly looking for the next saviour.
The temptation must be for United’s board to look at Liverpool and think of what might have been if only they had appointed Klopp.
The German is, without question, a hugely charismatic figure who inspires players with his personality. He probably would have fitted quite comfortably into the great-man playground of English football in the 60s. He arrived at Liverpool with a clear idea of how he wanted his team to play and while constantly refining the model has shaped his squad in that image. But he has not done it alone. There has also been significant support from the technical staff headed by Michael Edwards. It’s a similar structure United are now scrambling to put in place.
United, perhaps, were guilty of underestimating the extent to which recruitment had been centred on Ferguson, his network of contacts and his personal touch. Although it is not how Van Gaal would see it, there is a feeling at the club that he was given too much leeway in circumventing the recruitment process that was being put in place, and the effects of that are still being felt. But however sophisticated the new recruitment model is – and given it has delivered the club Alexis Sánchez and Fred, while allowing Solskjær to begin the season without attacking cover, it is manifestly no panacea – that cannot disguise the fact that in the six years since Ferguson retired, United have spent nearly £900m and gone backwards.
The shift in the balance of the rivalry has been abrupt. United led Liverpool by seven places and six points after those games at White Hart Lane and Goodison four years ago. By Sunday evening, Liverpool could be 16 points and more than 10 places above United. While Liverpool have made rapid progress, United have decayed: that’s the difference having a proper plan can make.