Meh, our issue all season has been that we've failed to control games. We have great athletes but lack players with composure, Macca, VVD, Jota and to an extent Jones (although he's been poor lately) aside.
The reason that Pep is so outrageously successful, and that Arteta is building a very good side, is that their game plan principally revolves around controlling matches. Against a worse team, they might blow them away, but if they're not on song they'll finish up having given up few chances, with all the possession, and more likely than not have scraped a goal or two.
Klopp is a fantastic manager and man, but his style requires his game plan to work to perfection, as if it doesn't it leaves holes. He's never been a manager to achieve control, and when all of his players aren't at it it comes back to bite him. At his team's peak, with Fab, Hendo, Gini, Salah, Bobby and Mane, we were borderline unplayable, but they were the perfect players for his system. I think losing Gini caused us huge problems and we've never looked as solid since.
We'll finish the season in third, and given the changes over last summer, and the number of matches we squeaked through having given away stupid goals, that's probably about right. It's a shame, I'd love Klopp to have won it again in his last year, but I can't say that I feel hard done by.
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Like I said, Nevilles utter **** and changes his mind by the day.
Gone quite...
