Jurgen Klopp flatly denies the accusation that his Liverpool team lack a ‘Plan B’ and actually claims he loses respect for those that claim otherwise…
There’s been occasions this season where we’ve struggled to beat the so-called lesser sides, but according to Klopp, this is not because his side lack tactical variation.
In fact, he’s named a number of games where we’ve played possession football and alternatively the gegenpress he’s so famous for.
“If somebody speaks to me about Plan A or Plan B, I don’t really understand this. It was never the case – actually I lose a bit of respect if people say things like this,” he said, as reported by the Mirror.
“In this season we had a lot of possession and won games against team like Hull and Leicester. Brilliant football, was not the highest intensity, pressing or whatever. It was football at its best or whatever.”
“We didn’t adapt in the last few weeks, we did it from the first day of the season. We knew at the beginning of the season that we are Liverpool obviously and where we go and who comes to Anfield will sit back a little bit. Pretty much all the teams are doing it. Maybe apart from City, maybe Tottenham, that’s it.”
The term ‘Plan B’ doesn’t necessarily sit well with us either, as when pundits use it, they essentially mean: ‘Bring a big striker off the bench’.
The best sides in world football don’t change style when they’re losing, they just play harder and faster and bring attacking players off the bench.
The fact Klopp has been using a wing-back formation recently, as well as his regular 4-3-3, shows us that he’s very willing to adapt stylistically.
It’ll be interesting to see what he deploys against West Brom today…