Will Liverpool win the Premier League title this season?
he popular football folklore suggests that Jurgen Klopp hasn’t won any significant cup in his career as manager, which is a bit overrated statement as he has actually won DFB-Pokal in Germany with Borussia Dortmund, the equivalent of the English FA Cup. He has subsequently lost two Champions League finals — one with Borussia Dortmund against Bayern Munich and one with Liverpool against Real Madrid. In his first two seasons with Liverpool, he has also led the Reds to a UEFA Europa League league finals lost by Liverpool by 1:3 to Seville.
What do all those lost finals have in common, besides the fact that Klopp was in charge of the teams who lost them?
It is that Bayern Munich, Sevilla and Real Madrid were superior to the Klopp teams in all three occasions.
It is fair to say that Borussia Dortmund have been at the same level with Bayern Munich in the German Bundesliga. However, during the Champions League final they have played against the Bavarians, and it was a bit unfair for Jurgen Klopp led team, who played very good in the final that Arjen Robben has scored a goals in the 89th-minute. That’s football, however. In the other two occasions Liverpool weren’t better prepared than Seville and Real Madrid to win the tournaments and have been considered as underdogs on both occasions.
It was the same for the Reds in the Premier League since 2010 when Rafael Benitez left the club. The season 2008/09 was the last one in Liverpool’s Premier League history when their team was built to compete for title and was predicted to be one of the contenders to win the league.
Someone would point to season 2013/14 when the exceptional at the time striking duo Lusi Suarez and Daniel Sturridge led Reds to the second place and the league and Liverpool have effective chased for the title. However, this was a Reds team who wasn’t considered as title contender at the beginning of the season. The individual qualities of some Liverpool players allowed the team to compete for the top spot. The Reds manager at the time Brendan Rogers was lucky to have exceptional players like Luis Suarez, Daniel Sturridge and Steven Gerrard in his squad, but failed to prepare and manage his team to win the league. It would be a bit unfair to blame on Rogers for the missed opportunity, but the fact was that he was in charge of the team and his game management in the most important fixtures didn’t deliver results.
