Things Manchester United Need To Learn From Liverpool’s Success

When Jurgen Klopp joined Liverpool back in the autumn of 2015, he said that he will want his Liverpool team to become the champions of England and return the crown they have been craving for so long. Four years have passed and whilst he did not exactly do that, he brought his team to three European finals, two of them consecutive in the Champions League, winning the last one in Madrid. Everything is rosy at Anfield once again.

Manchester United fans are not happy to see that, of course, but there are certain things the club should learn from their fiercest rival. Some of the things are so obvious and this success of theirs only highlighted them even more.

Learning From Mistakes In The Market

Remember when Liverpool sold Luis Suarez in 2014? They brought Ricky Lambert, Lazar Markovic, Mario Balotelli, Alberto Moreno and others. They had some pretty terrible moves in the market for years before that, basically ever since the start of the 2010s.

But they realized what they were doing wrong. Especially in 2014, they tried to spend a lot of money in one window, bringing in several players at once. But since Jurgen Klopp’s arrival and some brilliant work from Michael Edwards, their Director of technical performance, things changed They started looking at numbers more and more, which players would fit the new system, then identifying which players were priorities and then stick to that. They could not get Virgil Van Dijk right away, but they persevered. They could not get Naby Keita in 2017, but they signed him then for the summer of 2018. And they got exactly what they wanted, whilst also adding brilliant players such as Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah.

Appointing Proven Manager With Footballing Ideology

They also appointed a proven manager with a footballing ideology. People forget that, but by the time Klopp arrived in Liverpool, he already had two Bundesliga titles with a non-Bayern team, a Champions League final against all odds and he also made a small revolution in European football. Up until his Borussia teams, all teams wanted to imitate Barcelona’s juego de posicion, but Klopp managed to give football that ‘heavy metal’ and his gegenpressing style started taking tiki-takas position. Those are all incredible credentials and Liverpool got themselves a young, but very talented, progressive, charismatic and already proven manager. Compare that to Man United’s moves…

Gradual Improvements

Liverpool wanted to do too much straight away in that summer of 2014 and it did not work. Afterwards, they were improving the team bit by bit, making wise choices, such as even selling Coutinho and then gradually improving the team with new signings, but also by coaching. Joe Gomez is a talented player who was scouted and signed as a teenager, Fabinho brought real quality in a key position, with Andy Robertson also improving into the world’s best left-back.

There are so many things for Man United to learn. This team should not want to do all too much right away in a single summer, because that is when chaos can be created. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is not the manager of Klopp’s quality, style or type, but he earned his chance during winter and early spring and now we will see what he can offer.

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