Klopp flop deja-vu

Jurgen Klopp, “The Normal One”, as he called himself “(The Special One”) when he took office in Liverpool in 2015, alluding to his eccentric colleague José Mourinho, seems to be missing the fans. Alongside his entire backline. Klopp lost the last six league home games with Liverpool. Previously, he remained unbeaten 68 home games in a row. It brings a couple of questions in mind - is he reliving the drop that got him to leave Borussia Dortmund and are the Liverpool fans half of his success?

Anfield is one of the most emotional stadiums in world football. The spark jumps over the audience to the players, who become mentality monsters, as Klopp likes to say. "You'll never walk alone" as the ultimate musical adrenaline injection when sung by the full stadium. Now, when all of that is missing, and it's been a while, you get 0-1 against relegation-threatened Fulham at Anfield. With 22 points behind Manchester City, the title defense is gone and even qualifying for the next year's Champions League will be a huge mission.

When asked if this was the low point of his career, Klopp said after the Fulham debacle: "I wish I could say no, but yes, that's the way it is."

Liverpool were mentality monsters, now are mentality midgets

Up until now, people thought that his low point was reached in February 2015, when Borussia Dortmund found themselves last in the Bundesliga table. After the German championships won in 2011, 2012 and reaching the Champions League final in 2013, that bottom of the table seemed like an even more brutal crash than what Klopp is going through at the moment. In April it was agreed to terminate the contract early, at the end of the season Klopp had at least led BVB to 7th place and thus into the Europa League.

Then, as now, the slump was prefaced by Klopp taking Dortmund to extraordinary levels of achievement and emotion. Bayern Munich had been swatted aside, symbolically beaten 3-1 at the Allianz Arena. But gradually, Bayern bounced back — pressing the ball like Dortmund, though expending less energy in doing so. Premier League top teams are showing results of successfully analyzing the Reds' style of play at the moment.

There was no prior warning of the catastrophic fall of 2014-15. Just as Burnley, Brighton and Fulham have done to his Liverpool side, Eintracht Frankfurt, Hertha Berlin and Klopp’s modest former club Mainz all inflicted shock defeats. There were five losses on the trot between late September and early November.

Then, as now, injuries played their part; there was the loss of the irreplaceable Robert Lewandowski, who had left for Bayern; the German national team participants were exhausted by the winning of the 2014 World Cup. Other teams studied Klopp’s gegenpressing and began finding answers. The run raised questions of whether Klopp was tactically flexible enough.

God knows what's happening with Liverpool

The recovery came after Klopp had announced he would leave at the end of the season. Dortmund then secured 13 points from their last six games to finish seventh, with his players determined to salvage something from the wreckage before he left. And it was Thomas Tuchel who brought the tactical changes to keep the team moving forward.

When analyzing the current Liverpool crisis, many tend to believe in the wear-and-tear theory. The aggressive counter-pressing and the unconditional full-throttle football would wear out the team in the long run. Klopp crashed in Dortmund in his seventh year, in Liverpool he is now in his sixth.

He is still considered a saint in Liverpool. And rightly so. Also, with a 2-0 lead, he still has a shot in the Champions League, playing the second leg of last 16 against RB Leipzig on Wednesday. Officially, it's a home game for Liverpool but because of coronavirus it takes place in Budapest, Hungary. And there won't be any spectators either. If Klopp flops this one also, everything could change for him and that title of a saint could be quickly stripped off.

Beautiful while it lasts. But teams that thrive on energy like that are hard to put back together when they begin to malfunction. Liverpool are discovering that.