Is this how it ends, with Jurgen Klopp shutting down the voices he does not want to hear?
The long face is not new to Klopp. Peter Crouch crowned him ‘moaner of the year’ in The Daily Star last season. He moaned on the opening day of this season after Liverpool were held to a draw at Craven Cottage, the dry state of the pitch not to his liking.
Before that, he moaned about the scheduling of the Community Shield. He moaned about the goals conceded against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup in December and on Saturday he objected not to the line of questioning following the 3-0 Wolves defeat but at the journalist asking the question. He disagreed with the content of previous bulletins, apparently. It was the sorriest of conclusions to another awful day for Liverpool.
Liverpool did not collapse at Molineux as a consequence of anything the correspondent at The Athletic – who was on the receiving end of Klopp’s silent treatment on Saturday – might have written.
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It starts with accepting the right of the opposition to set up as they wish. Klopp’s observation that Wolves’ third goal coincided with their first advance beyond the halfway line in the second half, was a dart as cheap as that he would subsequently throw at his critic in the media suite.
Klopp’s difficulty is rooted in the way he sees the world, an ugly sense of entitlement that denies the quality of the opponent. Liverpool don’t lose, they fail to win. The opponent does not succeed as a result of their own qualities and labours but as a consequence of Liverpool falling short in some way. In this scheme, Liverpool give opponents permission to win. Without it, they have no chance. We might call this cosmological view the god delusion. It is the reason Klopp can never accept defeat.
It is both painful and embarrassing to witness Klopp’s anguish. It is a risk to put a microphone under his nose. Reporters cannot make themselves supine enough. The man from The Athletic was delicacy itself, his question reasonable, so reasonable in fact, Klopp would accept it from another after delivering his petty rebuke.
There is, of course, no-one among the Kop council of ministers with the power or authority to hold Klopp to account for behaviour they would not accept from a child. He was miffed because the goals conceded ignored the disciplines and rigours that underpin the culture he has instilled. Klopp expects the team to be “compact and active” not clueless and passive. His anger was not unjustified, simply aimed at the wrong cohort.
The players, for whatever reason, did not meet the standards expected and therefore it can be argued they let him down, but not as much as he let himself down with his puerile attack on a member of the media who has no agency or influence on outcomes.
The journey back to the top begins with humility, with Klopp accepting that he might be part of the problem. The mood at the club is set by him. If it were the case that the fearsome aura surrounding Liverpool at their best penetrated the psyche of the opposition, weakening resolve, then the opposite must be true.
"It's really difficult to talk to you."
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) February 5, 2023
Jurgen Klopp refuses to answer a reporter's question after Liverpool's defeat to Wolves yesterday.pic.twitter.com/eGeXzYH97I
The sight of Klopp throwing shade, disintegrating in public, offers encouragement to the opposition.
Julen Lopetegui did his job. He clocked a team in an unfamiliar state of flux; weakened by injuries, lacking belief and led by a manager struggling to accept the new reality. It all added up to easy meat for hungry Wolves.
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