Jurgen Klopp has given Liverpool fans hope that success is possible

Fan’s Eye View: Paul Tomkins on the arrival of the German

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp (Getty Images)

Brendan Rodgers is clearly a good manager. But it’s still not clear if he’s a great one. As with many British bosses, he didn’t quite succeed when asked to manage one of the bigger clubs.

And while Jürgen Klopp’s tenure got underway without fireworks at Spurs, his CV is where the hope lies: he did an excellent job at Mainz, and a sensational one at Dortmund. Different circumstances, but he proved himself a winner with two Bundesliga titles.

For 18 months Rodgers fielded an exciting team, and he deserves praise for nearly winning the title. However, his ultimate failure was threefold: poor buying strategy when selecting his own targets; inadequate defensive organisation; and a lack of consistency in his approach.

Klopp simply has more gravitas, more charisma, but has also shown that he can build beautifully balanced young sides that can defend and attack.

While an immediate and total transformation was unlikely, the defensive side of the Reds’ game stood out in London. At the other end there wasn’t much cutting edge, although perhaps this was to be expected given how many forwards are injured.

Liverpool became the first team to outrun Spurs this season – in keeping with Klopp’s physical demands at Dortmund.

Many of Rodgers’ preferred signings lacked pace, and over time the team got slower. Klopp’s approach is more aggressive, with an absolute insistence on pace and hard running. He will give the team a true identity.

Klopp inspires confidence. He has given the Liverpool fans hope, and while that hope may be dashed by the financial realities of being the fifth-richest club in the country, he seems the perfect man to try to push beyond that glass ceiling. Indeed, such is the belief he instils, he may even smash it to pieces.

Paul Tomkins runs the Liverpool FC fanzine ‘The Tomkins Times’