Liverpool’s recent history might have looked somewhat different had Brendan Rodgers succeeded where many other Reds managers had failed and secured a first Premier League title in decades in 2013/14.
A collapse in the following two campaigns, however, paved the way for Jurgen Klopp’s arrival and a transformation from top to bottom that enabled the securing of multiple pieces of silverware.
Looking back on the German’s highly successful regime, James Milner compared the intensity of the managers’ training styles at Anfield.
“You look at his track record and how he went about things. How we were training was different to what we’d done, we were training very hard,” the vice-skipper told The Anfield Wrap for their JÜRGEN docu-series (available in parts on YouTube).
“Under Brendan was fantastic training, we had some great sessions, but it was a different style of training, you had to adapt to that.
“We picked up a few injuries, but it was like this is the way we do it.”
As we’re all more than familiar with as Liverpool fans, of course, the resurgence wasn’t just the result of hard graft on the training ground but also a change in mentality – ‘from doubters to believers’.
“The way he spoke about the city, the club, what he was going to bring. He was grasping the players straight away, like he doesn’t want fear, he wants belief, he wants to project forward,” Steven Gerrard told the outlet. “Listening to that interview, as an ex-player, it was getting my juices flowing.”
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It’s perhaps that purest form of belief that we’re now missing in 2022/23 following the nearly campaign of the prior year.
Despite all the quality this squad still possesses, attitude and application has now become a thing to question; a situation previously thought of as inconceivable in association with a Klopp Liverpool side.
Nonetheless, it’s worth emphasising that it’s far from being a terminal situation, provided that we invest suitably in the summer to bring in fresh legs and minds mouldable for what we hope will be the next great era under the German tactician.