Jurgen Norbert Klopp

[VladimirIlyich 9,778]

On 25/03/2022 at 12:09, Red_or_Dead said:

You disliked Houllier that much?!

 

 

Haha! 

[Pete 2,156]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60930400

What a guy.  Please stay Jurgen.  You are perfect for LFC. 

[dockers_strike 4,217]

3 minutes ago, Pete said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60930400

What a guy.  Please stay Jurgen.  You are perfect for LFC. 

Love touch by Jurgen.

[SlugTrail 1,347]

The good thing about Jurgen is its never staged and isn't done just for the publicity, he does it because its who he is.

[dockers_strike 4,217]

Roy Evans is discussing Jürgen Klopp and the way he has re-established Liverpool as the trophy-winning force they were in the days when Evans first worked for the club.

 

“I like the way he talks about football, I like his attitude, he gets Liverpool,” he says. “Mind, I don’t know him personally. I’ve only met him once.” And he pauses, chuckling, before recalling the encounter. It was after a game, when Klopp appeared in the Anfield suite where Evans was enjoying the hospitality.

 

“I was with a group he knew and they obviously thought he must know who I was so didn’t introduce me,” Evans smiles. “And he goes ‘who’s he then?’ and someone goes: ‘oh this is Roy Evans, he used to manage Liverpool’. And to be fair to him, he was really interested, chatted for a long time. I really admire him.”

 

And when it comes to assessing Liverpool managers, Evans knows what he is talking about.

 

He worked for more than 25 years under the very best of them – Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Sir Kenny Dalglish – before becoming manager himself in 1994. He is the last of the Boot Room Boys, the only surviving member of the group of coaches who made Liverpool the finest trophy accumulating machine in English football history. According to Peter Hooton, voicing a BT documentary about the Boot Room, based on his brilliant book, this was “the perfect cocktail of collective skills”. “It was,” says Evans, “pure football.” 

 

The footballing brains trust took its name from the cubby hole under Anfield’s main stand, where after-match drinks were consumed in surroundings somewhat less salubrious than the ones in which Evans met Klopp. 

 

“Oh it wasn’t glamorous,” he smiles. “When I first joined the coaching staff I thought it looked a bit drab, so to brighten it up I went and put calendars on the wall, from Penthouse and Playboy, pictures of nude women basically. We didn’t often have bad games in those days, but I remember once when we did, Bob Paisley looking at the pictures and saying ‘hey, you lot didn’t play too well today did yer?’”’

 

The Boot Room routine was always the same: after matches, the staff would repair to the cramped space between the manager’s office and the home dressing room, for a debrief and a drink, sitting in among the boots, the air thick with the smell of dubbin and liniment. Evans was responsible for making sure the place was suitably stocked. 

 

“Every match we’d have a case of Guinness, a case of lager, a bottle of whisky, plenty for everyone. Not just us, either. We used to invite the opposition in. Even if you got beat, you’d say: ‘eh well done, come in, have a drink’. We’d talk to them about their tactics. And sometimes we’d think: that’s not a bad idea. Even when we were at the top playing against the bottom they might come up with one little thing that might help your team. And you’d take it on board.”

 

It was this unspoken philosophy of constantly seeking to improve, Hooton’s film makes clear, that lay at the heart of Liverpool’s success. Evans was the keenest of students. While still an aspiring full back in the first team squad, he had been encouraged by Shankly to take up a coaching role at the age of 26. From there he took charge of the reserve team, winning the Central League nine times in ten years. From the moment he donned a tracksuit, he says he never stopped learning.

 

“Even though I was running the reserves, they’d always involve me in the conversation,” he says. “They’d say: if you have something to say, then speak up. Don’t be offended if we don’t necessarily act on it but say your bit. And when the reserves weren’t playing, they’d always take me with the first team. I’d sit on the bench alongside Bob or Joe and just absorb it. You learn a lot when you listen to great men like them.”

 

He wasn’t simply a bystander, either. He would be given responsibilities. 

 

“I’d have to run on when someone was injured. And it was a little bit ridiculous, getting me to act as physio, I had absolutely no qualifications. I’m not sure how much use I was. And in the heat of things, yeah, I might have lost my rag a few times, thrown the sponge at people.”

 

In 1994, after the unsuccessful leadership of Graeme Souness, Evans was tasked with trying to restore Liverpool to league-winning prominence. It was hoped, as manager, he could bring back some of the Boot Room success. 

 

“Yes, there was pressure on me. There was always a pressure to get Liverpool back to being champions. From yourself as much as anyone. At the end of the day I was a Liverpool fan, I was desperate for it to return to what it had been before.”

 

He couldn’t do it, however. Especially after he was later teamed up with Gérard Houllier in an ill-starred managerial twosome. 

 

“The thing was, even when we had this collective way of discussing things in the Boot Room, only one man was making the final decisions. When there's two of you and you start talking about team selection and one of you wants to pick this player and the other wants to pick another player then it causes problems. Someone has to have the final say. That is where it fell down.

 

“The players are not stupid. If they have been left out of the team and they think it is my decision then they would side with Gérard. The ones who thought they had been left out because of Gérard would side with me. It didn’t work. I’d say it was the worst part of my career. After I left he implemented his style and won a few things. But I just didn’t think it was right.” 

 

Evans stayed away from Anfield for some time after he resigned as manager in 1998. But he is back there now, a regular watching Klopp’s team. And he sees many similarities between the German’s approach and that of the golden era. 

 

“Remember it’s not about one person. It’s about the team itself, and the team behind the team. With Jurgen it seems to be about discussing things beforehand, getting four or five voices in and then him making the decisions. It’s the Boot Room rebooted if you like.”

And if Klopp wants to include Evans in the conversation he knows where to find him. After all, they have now been introduced.

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2022/04/03/roy-evans-interview-jurgen-klopp-reviving-memories-liverpools/

[dockers_strike 4,217]

Am I alone in thinking Jurgen has become a better manager, tactically, since the brain, Bovac left?

 

Yes, I know Jurgen still has his 2 assistants and they play a part but, I just get the feeling Jurgen has grown in confidence within himself. And by grown in confidence, I dont mean he didnt have any or a lot, he clearly did.

[dockers_strike 4,217]

Had to be to a Beatles song!

 

 

[Captain Howdy 1,989]

On 06/04/2022 at 11:08, dockers_strike said:

Am I alone in thinking Jurgen has become a better manager, tactically, since the brain, Bovac left?

 

Yes, I know Jurgen still has his 2 assistants and they play a part but, I just get the feeling Jurgen has grown in confidence within himself. And by grown in confidence, I dont mean he didnt have any or a lot, he clearly did.

Did it ever come out why they split? I can’t remember 

[Pete 2,156]

21 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

Did it ever come out why they split? I can’t remember 

Jurgen kept hogging the duvet. Allegedly. 

[dockers_strike 4,217]

27 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

Did it ever come out why they split? I can’t remember 

There was a piece in the Echo not long ago where Jurgen just said it 'wasnt working any more.'

 

It was said ages ago Bovac had difficulty mastering English and had issues with Achterburg taking too long getting players on the pitch as subs. Not sure about the latter because we still seem to take an age even now!

 

I mean even marriages breakdown so maybe the friendship just did?

[Barrington Womble 11,153]

49 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

Did it ever come out why they split? I can’t remember 

Klopp was listening more to the likes of Ljinders and Buvac didn't like it. Because Buvac was a little older, klopp had spent a lot of years leaning on buvac's experience. By the time klopp got to Liverpool, he felt he didn't really need the "older head" and was more interested in the new ideas coming from other parts of his team. Buvac felt he was being pushed out. 

[Tony Moanero 17,335]

4 hours ago, dockers_strike said:

Had to be to a Beatles song!

 

 

I can’t fault them for effort, but it doesn’t sound much like the Beatles song.

[Bobby Hundreds 10,575]

He had to shake Buvac to get the freshness back.

 

 

[gkmacca 1,455]

41 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

Klopp was listening more to the likes of Ljinders and Buvac didn't like it. Because Buvac was a little older, klopp had spent a lot of years leaning on buvac's experience. By the time klopp got to Liverpool, he felt he didn't really need the "older head" and was more interested in the new ideas coming from other parts of his team. Buvac felt he was being pushed out. 

But Linders left at the end of 2017, whereas Buvac didn't leave until the end of April 2018, so if Buvac had been resentful of Pep's presence he ought to have felt that he'd 'won' that particular power struggle. Instead of reasserting any old rapport with Klopp, however, the relationship fell apart in he months after Pep left. So I think that angl is misleading.

 

There were reports that he started to stop contributing much at HT and in training during tthat final season, and I think it was mainly just down to that: he lost interesst in the role.

[gkmacca 1,455]

6 minutes ago, Tony Moanero said:

I can’t fault them for effort, but it doesn’t sound much like the Beatles song.

At least no one strained their vocal chords, and the ones who knew the tune had a well-earned rest. As it's said, you sing just well enough to get the job done. It was that kind of night at Anfield.

[Captain Howdy 1,989]

50 minutes ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

He had to shake Buvac to get the freshness back.

 

 

Oooohhhhh

[Barrington Womble 11,153]

4 hours ago, gkmacca said:

But Linders left at the end of 2017, whereas Buvac didn't leave until the end of April 2018, so if Buvac had been resentful of Pep's presence he ought to have felt that he'd 'won' that particular power struggle. Instead of reasserting any old rapport with Klopp, however, the relationship fell apart in he months after Pep left. So I think that angl is misleading.

 

There were reports that he started to stop contributing much at HT and in training during tthat final season, and I think it was mainly just down to that: he lost interesst in the role.

If that angle is misleading, take it up with klopp! And it wasn't just Ljinders. As I said in my original post, it was "other parts of the team" and "the likes of Ljinders". Klopp name called Peter krawietz too when he spoke about it, but he indicated it was others right across his backroom team and Buvac was used to being the main man. 

[gkmacca 1,455]

47 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

If that angle is misleading, take it up with klopp! And it wasn't just Ljinders. As I said in my original post, it was "other parts of the team" and "the likes of Ljinders". Klopp name called Peter krawietz too when he spoke about it, but he indicated it was others right across his backroom team and Buvac was used to being the main man. 

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Buvac leaving because of the growing influence of someone who'd already left, I repeat, doesn't make sense. So I need to take that up with Klopp, do I? I've said elsewhere ages ago that, when Pep returned, Klopp was certainly receptive to fresh ideas, and that shows itself to some extent tactically in the contrast in the two Champions League finals. But if you still can't see why I said your claim was misleading, I'm not sure what else to do but suggest you read it through again, reflect on the timeline, and have a think.

[deiseach 3,870]

What was that about someone preferring Ancelotti?

[m0e 2,985]

2 hours ago, deiseach said:

What was that about someone preferring Ancelotti?

Dave is going to be heartbroken 

[TheDrowningMan 719]

Longest serving manager in the Premier League now that Dyche is no more.

[gkmacca 1,455]

2 hours ago, m0e said:

Dave is going to be heartbroken 

I love him interviews. Last week he paused during a live TV interview and whispered if he was allowed to say 'screwed'. Then he went ahead and said 'shit,' twice, in quick succession.

[dockers_strike 4,217]

1 hour ago, TheDrowningMan said:

Longest serving manager in the Premier League now that Dyche is no more.

I thought Guardiola, apparently not!

[VladimirIlyich 9,778]

On 03/04/2022 at 12:28, dockers_strike said:

Roy Evans is discussing Jürgen Klopp and the way he has re-established Liverpool as the trophy-winning force they were in the days when Evans first worked for the club.

 

“I like the way he talks about football, I like his attitude, he gets Liverpool,” he says. “Mind, I don’t know him personally. I’ve only met him once.” And he pauses, chuckling, before recalling the encounter. It was after a game, when Klopp appeared in the Anfield suite where Evans was enjoying the hospitality.

 

“I was with a group he knew and they obviously thought he must know who I was so didn’t introduce me,” Evans smiles. “And he goes ‘who’s he then?’ and someone goes: ‘oh this is Roy Evans, he used to manage Liverpool’. And to be fair to him, he was really interested, chatted for a long time. I really admire him.”

 

And when it comes to assessing Liverpool managers, Evans knows what he is talking about.

 

He worked for more than 25 years under the very best of them – Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Sir Kenny Dalglish – before becoming manager himself in 1994. He is the last of the Boot Room Boys, the only surviving member of the group of coaches who made Liverpool the finest trophy accumulating machine in English football history. According to Peter Hooton, voicing a BT documentary about the Boot Room, based on his brilliant book, this was “the perfect cocktail of collective skills”. “It was,” says Evans, “pure football.” 

 

The footballing brains trust took its name from the cubby hole under Anfield’s main stand, where after-match drinks were consumed in surroundings somewhat less salubrious than the ones in which Evans met Klopp. 

 

“Oh it wasn’t glamorous,” he smiles. “When I first joined the coaching staff I thought it looked a bit drab, so to brighten it up I went and put calendars on the wall, from Penthouse and Playboy, pictures of nude women basically. We didn’t often have bad games in those days, but I remember once when we did, Bob Paisley looking at the pictures and saying ‘hey, you lot didn’t play too well today did yer?’”’

 

The Boot Room routine was always the same: after matches, the staff would repair to the cramped space between the manager’s office and the home dressing room, for a debrief and a drink, sitting in among the boots, the air thick with the smell of dubbin and liniment. Evans was responsible for making sure the place was suitably stocked. 

 

“Every match we’d have a case of Guinness, a case of lager, a bottle of whisky, plenty for everyone. Not just us, either. We used to invite the opposition in. Even if you got beat, you’d say: ‘eh well done, come in, have a drink’. We’d talk to them about their tactics. And sometimes we’d think: that’s not a bad idea. Even when we were at the top playing against the bottom they might come up with one little thing that might help your team. And you’d take it on board.”

 

It was this unspoken philosophy of constantly seeking to improve, Hooton’s film makes clear, that lay at the heart of Liverpool’s success. Evans was the keenest of students. While still an aspiring full back in the first team squad, he had been encouraged by Shankly to take up a coaching role at the age of 26. From there he took charge of the reserve team, winning the Central League nine times in ten years. From the moment he donned a tracksuit, he says he never stopped learning.

 

“Even though I was running the reserves, they’d always involve me in the conversation,” he says. “They’d say: if you have something to say, then speak up. Don’t be offended if we don’t necessarily act on it but say your bit. And when the reserves weren’t playing, they’d always take me with the first team. I’d sit on the bench alongside Bob or Joe and just absorb it. You learn a lot when you listen to great men like them.”

 

He wasn’t simply a bystander, either. He would be given responsibilities. 

 

“I’d have to run on when someone was injured. And it was a little bit ridiculous, getting me to act as physio, I had absolutely no qualifications. I’m not sure how much use I was. And in the heat of things, yeah, I might have lost my rag a few times, thrown the sponge at people.”

 

In 1994, after the unsuccessful leadership of Graeme Souness, Evans was tasked with trying to restore Liverpool to league-winning prominence. It was hoped, as manager, he could bring back some of the Boot Room success. 

 

“Yes, there was pressure on me. There was always a pressure to get Liverpool back to being champions. From yourself as much as anyone. At the end of the day I was a Liverpool fan, I was desperate for it to return to what it had been before.”

 

He couldn’t do it, however. Especially after he was later teamed up with Gérard Houllier in an ill-starred managerial twosome. 

 

“The thing was, even when we had this collective way of discussing things in the Boot Room, only one man was making the final decisions. When there's two of you and you start talking about team selection and one of you wants to pick this player and the other wants to pick another player then it causes problems. Someone has to have the final say. That is where it fell down.

 

“The players are not stupid. If they have been left out of the team and they think it is my decision then they would side with Gérard. The ones who thought they had been left out because of Gérard would side with me. It didn’t work. I’d say it was the worst part of my career. After I left he implemented his style and won a few things. But I just didn’t think it was right.” 

 

Evans stayed away from Anfield for some time after he resigned as manager in 1998. But he is back there now, a regular watching Klopp’s team. And he sees many similarities between the German’s approach and that of the golden era. 

 

“Remember it’s not about one person. It’s about the team itself, and the team behind the team. With Jurgen it seems to be about discussing things beforehand, getting four or five voices in and then him making the decisions. It’s the Boot Room rebooted if you like.”

And if Klopp wants to include Evans in the conversation he knows where to find him. After all, they have now been introduced.

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2022/04/03/roy-evans-interview-jurgen-klopp-reviving-memories-liverpools/

I like Roy and think he is a true Liverpool and football man but I feel he could have been a bit more respectful to Houllier despite his own obvious disappointment. Maybe Houllier was a bit of an arsehole or arrogant towards him? But Roy has to recognise that Houllier,not him,was exactly what was needed at that time.

[Code 1,555]

On 23/03/2022 at 01:13, Clem H Fandango said:

Haha, 'Kuyt! Slow down!'.

Would that not be full stop?