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Phil Neville was all over the place yesterday. He started off saying that it was disrespectful to managers to speculate so openly on their job and successors, but then criticised Swansea for not having sorted Gary Monk's successor before firing him :unsure:
One thing though is that although Klopp could be seen to have been judged on a relatively short time at Liverpool, if you look at his last season at Dortmund he was struggling there too. This time last year they were in the relegation zone and Germany has a really easy league bar munich. Perhaps his flaws are coming out in a harder league. Over the last year of management by Klopp, he has been poorQuote:
Originally Posted by Arsene Wenger
As much as I want to laugh at Klopp through petty rivalry, that post is absolute nonsense.
I don't think it was a fluke winning back-to-back titles at Dortmund and reaching the CL Final. Something the team hadn't done in a decade. Dortmund finished 7th by the end of last year, qualified for the Europa League, got to a cup final and salvaged what was a desperate start. Wolfsburg also knocked out Utd a couple of weeks ago - doesn't say much about our league at the moment, especially when none of our teams stand a realistic chance of winning it.
Too early to say anything about Klopp, Brendan did leave a fairly average squad lacking in star quality. By the same token, it was a bit silly how it was thought he had reinvented Liverpool after the 2 notable wins over Chelsea and City.
He has the fans on side though and will do for a long time, so I guess that will buy him all the time he needs to get it right.
Of course the titles weren't a fluke, but it was then followed by 2 seasons where they were distant runners up and then last season where they were in the relegation zone as late as Valentine's Day. Yes, they got it together in the end but it was a poor season for them.
It's not fair to judge Klopp yet but some were acting like they were Champions Elect the moment he walked in the door.
Wenger has never had to compete against a team all season at the same level as Bayern have been for the past 4/5 seasons but I think you'd view his efforts diffferently. Absolute nonsense to throw the accusation of 'distant runners up' against them when you all you are doing is basing it on stats, rather than looking at the details of how the league has panned out. It is like saying last night we were lucky to win because City had 20 shots against our 8 at goal, yet look beyond the figure and people will see most of their efforts were pretty tame. Your stance about Wenger gains credibility with explaination behind the facts, instead of looking at 2 trophies in ten seasons. Only a select few teams in the whole of Europe could have got close to Bayern in the league and what Klopp managed to do at Dortmund not just in the league but creating a team to be feared across Europe was an amazing feat, especially when you have your closest rivals tapping up and stealing your best players.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters To Santa
I hope he fails miserably at Liverpool but it's revisionist rubbish to dismiss what he achieved at Dortmund.
25 and 19 points isn't distant second?!
I'm not dismissing what he did at Dortmund but their last title was in 2012, some people were acting like as soon as he arrived they became the team to beat.
Again, just throwing stats out. Did you read my post? Do you know anything of what happened over those two seasons apart from what you've just seen on the internet?
You are dismissing what he did at Dortmund by continually referring to stats and nothing else. Yet the same is done for some of your arguments and you dismiss them. Works both ways.
No, I'm not. Did you read my post?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kano
And yes, I'm using the statistic of how many points Dortmund got compared with the champions to back up my assertion that they were a distant 2nd.
Pretty reasonable, no?
Nothing worse than selective quoting. For all the effort you put into fighting Wenger's recent history, it's pretty funny to see you do the same thing you accuse everyone else of doing and reducing the argument to surface level.