How will we remember Jurgen Klopp's time in the Premier League?

The Liverpool manager has been criticised for not winning enough trophies, but that overlooks the remarkable job he's done to consistently outperform richer clubs.

Jurgen Klopp’s time as Liverpool manager is about to come to an end and as a result it’s only natural that questions over the German tactician’s legacy at Anfield are now thoroughly up for debate. Some have asked whether Klopp’s one Premier League title over the course of the last nine seasons not only warrants some serious questions over his success at the club but whether a rethink over his performance as Liverpool manager is due. 

However, that not only misses the crucial context of what Liverpool were before Klopp took over in 2015 but also just how well he’s done to keep the Anfield club on a level pegging with domestic rivals with far deeper pockets and at times surpass them entirely. Indeed, if we simply want to look at the clear number of points won in the English top-flight we can already see how impressive Klopp has been. For example, if we take the last 20 seasons into account, we can see that three of the club’s best finishes in that period of time have come under Klopp. 

In fact, when we narrow in on this current campaign, we can see that should Liverpool win all their remaining league games and finish the season on 84 points, it will be their joint-fifth highest return in 20 years. Despite losing out on another league title. This, perhaps, does a good job of underlining the crucial context needed to appreciate the job Klopp has done as Liverpool manager. Although just one of these red lines represents a league title, all but one or two of them represent a clear difference between where the club once was and where Klopp took them. 

Another way of looking at this is by simply comparing Klopp’s record in the Premier League to the managers he’s faced since 2015. When we rank the best average points per game record in the English top flight for all managers that coached at least 100 games, only Pep Guardiola can boast a more impressive record than Klopp with an average of 2.34 compared to Klopp’s 2.11. When we then couple that with the spending on transfer fees for English clubs since Klopp arrived at Anfield in 2015, it goes some way to showing a manager that has been the second best in the division for the past nine seasons despite five clubs spending more money on new players than his own. 

We can actually bury even further into these numbers to take a look at how efficient Liverpool have been with their money under Klopp by taking the total money spent on each top five squad each season and dividing it by points won to see how much each club spent per point in the league. As we can see from the graph below, Klopp’s team consistently spent the least amount for the most points compared to most of England’s biggest clubs. Not only have the Anfield side earned more points for less money than Man City in each of the last nine seasons, but they’ve also got far more for their money than the likes of Chelsea, Man Utd and even Arsenal in some seasons. 

Perhaps a better way of looking at this is by taking an average for each club in this period of time, which shows Liverpool having spent €8.7 million per league points since Klopp arrived at the club. Which is less than the €11.2m Man City have spent and in a completely different ballpark from the €12.9 m Man Utd have spent and the €16.6 m Chelsea have spent. 

The differences between these numbers may seem small in real terms, but over the course of nine league seasons they can have a huge impact. Liverpool can’t throw money around like Man Utd, Chelsea or Man City and the only reason they’ve managed to challenge for so many league titles is because Klopp has been able to get the best out of the players at his disposal. In other words, Liverpool have done more with less under Klopp. 

It’s these small improvements and maximising of the tools at hand that fans of a club note from week to week and appreciate over time. And, perhaps most notably, what rival fans may choose to ignore in favour of a more reductive comparison of one trophy cabinet to the next. Winning the club’s first league title in 30 years and their success in Europe will be how Klopp’s time at Anfield will be remembered, but his legacy will most likely be defined by how he raised this club above their financial limitations and allowed them to go toe-to-toe with rivals bankrolled by entire nation states. 

Whether the man tasked with replacing Klopp will be capable of matching his impressive record remains to be seen, but nobody can doubt that the German manager did as good a job as he possibly could during his time at Anfield.