Jürgen Klopp never bowed to populist opinion as a Liverpool manager.
During his five years at the Anfield Hotseat, Klopp has often swum against the strength of the public tide, preferring to do things his own way.
“I’m not a control freak,” he explains in the new Liverpool documentary “The End Of The Storm”. “I just think that things should happen a certain way.”
Take, for example, his handling of the Reds’ trip to the Club World Cup last year.
For many on these shores, the mid-season trip to Qatar was an unnecessary risk to his team’s title goals in the Premier League.
Instead of sending a youth team to the Middle East and playing a Carabao Cup quarter-finals at Aston Villa, Klopp instead marched to his own drum.
He would be rewarded for the bravery of his convictions as Liverpool won the only trophy they had previously escaped before returning to England to cement the title with a 4-0 win at Leicester on Boxing Day.
A few months later, Klopp would be mocked again when he revealed that an unwanted FA Cup rerun would not be a reason to cancel a week’s break for him and his players.
After a few months of football between December and January, the Reds squad was eagerly awaiting a break when a draw with Shrewsbury challenged the prospect of Anfield re-running.
Rather than breaking the promise to his players, many of whom had booked vacations with their families, Klopp asked Neil Critchley to lead a youth team into a fight they would win.
Again Klopp ignored the noise from outside the Liverpool bunker to do what he thought was right. It has again proven to be the right decision.
Perhaps the greatest example of Klopp drowning out the outside noise, however, was when Liverpool stepped down from signing Virgil van Dijk in the summer of 2017.
Rather than looking for an alternative after relations with Southampton went bad, Klopp held his nerve and waited.
Six months later, despite a lot of criticism – especially after a 4-1 defeat at Spurs – the boss of the Reds had his man.
Van Dijk, at £ 75million, has since been credited with converting Liverpool from rival to champions.
A runner-up in last year’s Ballon d’Or more than confirmed Klopp’s strength of character to ignore calls to pursue another option.
Yes, Klopp is his own man when it comes to big calls for his team in Liverpool. No other area shows this more than the transfer market.
When Klopp was under tremendous pressure to dip his toes back in the summer months, he was firm and consistent.
“Because of COVID-19, you have to think five times about what you can and cannot do,” said Klopp in August, repeating a line that he had stood behind for months.
The structuring of the deals for Diogo Jota and Thiago Alcantara – along with the fact that the club got £ 50m back from sales – was evidence that the Red’s boss was not paying lip service to the financial impact of the pandemic.
Most of the time, Klopp has resisted the urge to succumb to those whose requests for more transfers are endless.
But could the setbacks in Liverpool’s defense this season force Klopp’s hand in the January market this time around?
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Income in the off-season is a rarity for the Reds among Germans.
During his previous four January at Anfield, only Van Dijk and Takumi Minamino can be considered long-term, high-profile additions.
Marko Grujic was taken into his first window before loaning to Red Star Belgrade in 2016. The signing of another window – and the reasons for it – could spark fan interest after almost five years.
Steven Caulker’s arrival was a left-back at the time, but the center-back was brought to the club to, as you guessed, resolve a center-back injury crisis.
“It was very important to us. In our situation, “said Klopp at the time.” Little did we know four weeks ago that we would have a problem with the center halves because they were all in the running.
“At the beginning of the season Joe Gomez was also in the squad, so a fifth half – and then the situation changed completely.
“The situation is that Martin Skrtel will not be available for the next five weeks. Then we have the problem with Dejan Lovren.
“Then you have Mamadou Sakho – he can play but it’s not perfect and you can’t take him three or four times in a row throughout the season.
“And it’s the same for Kolo Toure and it would mean that we are always in this situation, do we have enough or not? So we thought ‘yes, good idea'”.
While Liverpool looks to the future for the foreseeable future without Van Dijk and Gomez and Fabinho has problems at the same time and question marks about Joel Matip’s long-term stability remain, Klopp can feel a certain Deja Vu.
Who should play in the center-back against Leicester? Choose your duo in our short survey HERE.
Names like Dayot Upamecano, Ozan Kabak and Ben White were tossed around last month after Van Dijk found out that surgery would be needed.
At the time, Liverpool privately insisted that the situation in the transfer market was unlikely to improve. But has Gomez’s injury proved too much of a burden for an already overworked center-back department?
Klopp has rarely listened to those outside his inner circle on his way to restoring Liverpool as a standout name in English football.
His next step, however, could decide whether or not to stay there.
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