Jurgen Klopp famously coined the phrase “heavy metal football” when once describing his favoured style but after his Liverpool beat Brentford on Sunday, he revealed it was the way his opponents played that he once strived for as a young coach.
Liverpool needed a positive result to take into the international break after an unconvincing 1-1 draw at struggling Luton Town in the Premier League last weekend was followed by a defeat at Toulouse in the Europa League.
They got just that with a 3-0 win that moved them up to second in the Premier League, and just a point behind leaders Manchester City following their thrilling 4-4 draw with Chelsea.
But it took a player of Mohamed Salah’s quality to get the breakthrough as Brentford frustrated Liverpool for much of the first half, while also looking a threat on the counter.
“More than 20 years ago when I started my career, I wanted to create a team that nobody wants to play against and we faced that team today,” said Klopp.
“It’s crazy! This spell where they had six corners in a row I thought ‘oh god.’ But we defended with so much passion in the moment. The goals we scored were fantastic.”
‘Exceptional’ Salah stars again
While Klopp may have once aspired to coach his teams to play in a similar style to Brentford, he has gone in a different direction, creating teams that often possess the attacking quality to open up any type of opponent.
Liverpool’s forward line has changed over the years under Klopp but the one constant and significant piece of quality is Salah.
The Egypt international scored twice against Brentford, taking his Premier League tally for the season up to 10 and his overall number of goals in English football to 200.
His first strike to break Brentford’s resistance was one of pure quality.
After winning back possession, Liverpool countered quickly before Darwin Nunez provided the pass for Salah, who kept his composure to place a finish out of the goalkeeper’s reach.
“He is an exceptional player,” said Klopp. “He played a superb game today.
“The composure for the first goal was insane. A special player.”
For his team-mates, knowing there is a player of Salah’s quality on the pitch with them gives them the belief they will always have the chance to score.
“He is always there,” Liverpool forward Diogo Jota said. “He is a goal threat, creates chances and he is really important for us, like everyone knows.”
A three-horse title race?
Salah’s double plus Jota’s powerful strike was enough to lift Liverpool above Arsenal into second on goal difference.
While it is still early in the season the indications are that this could be a three-horse title race between Liverpool, Arsenal and the current leaders and defending champions Manchester City.
First will meet second in a mouth-watering clash after the international break, with City hosting the Reds at Etihad Stadium on Saturday, 25 November.
Among all the positivity of the performance and result against Brentford, the one moment of frustration for Klopp was when discussing the City clash and, in particular, its kick-off time.
“How can you put the Man City game on at 12:30 GMT?” he said. “These people don’t feel football.
“There could’ve been a moment when these two teams have 30 international players, we pick up the South Americans on one plane to arrive here.”
Regardless, the build-up to the game will no doubt focus on its importance in the title race, but that is something Klopp is refusing to even consider until well into next year.
“We showed a top reaction today but we need to keep going,” he said.
“If we are there in March or April, we can talk. Until then we just fight our way through toughest league in the world.”
