How do we view Klopp and FSG's Liverpool legacies now?

Kate Mason (0:06)

Welcome to The Athletic FC Podcast with me, Kate Mason. Liverpool went toe to toe with Manchester City during the Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola era, winning one title but finishing runners up twice with 97 and 92 points. Now that City have been ruled to have cheated, do Klopp and Fenway Sports Group's Liverpool legacies need to be re-evaluated? We are The Thursday Club on The Athletic FC. I'm joined as usual in studio by former England goalkeeper Rob Green. Hello. Hello.

The Athletic's senior sports news reporter, Matt Slater.

He's taking off the jackets for this proportion of events. I'm a little bit disappointed, but Adam is wearing a lovely jumper down the line in New York. It is our reigning sports journalist of the year, Adam Crafton. Hello.

Adam Crafton (0:53)

Hello. It's cold here. It's becoming full.

It's gone past up or picking weather. What are we talking?

Kate Mason (1:01)

Because I was feels like three degrees when I turned up here this morning.

Adam Crafton (1:04)

It's not that cold. It's all relative.

Kate Mason (1:09)

Liverpool, Manchester City renew their rivalry this weekend, and it feels as though the eyes of the entire world will be on Anfield. The rivalry between the clubs was born during the period that Manchester City, in the words of Premier League CEO Richard Masters, systematically broke the rules for nearly a decade.

Adam, how much of an impact has this had on the way that you view that Liverpool side under Jurgen Klopp?

Adam Crafton (1:36)

I don't think it's changed the way that I view that team, because I think we all knew it was an amazing team. And, you know, as those points halls kind of said it for what it was, and I think there was a sense at the time that what they were doing was pretty incredible, unusual, you know, both to compete in the latter stages of the Champions League and get into the late 90s of points. I think if it changes anyone's perception around Liverpool, maybe it's Brendan Rodgers, because Brendan Rodgers was a slip, really, away from winning the Premier League in 2014

And that was also a point at which Manchester City, according to a Premier League commission, were cheating at a pretty big scale. So, yeah, and City went on to win that title. So I think it's more the kind of the broader picture of Liverpool during that decade. You know, lots of teams have kind of cycles of dominance and cycles of huge success. Manchester United had it kind of in the 90s.

Maybe Liverpool's big chance was the 2010s. And that's kind of been taken away from them. You know, maybe we're now moving into Arsenal's, for example. And there's, I think there's a few teams who would argue it could have been them in the 2010s. But I think Liverpool in particular, that period, probably 2014 through to 2020, I think feel pretty hard done by. Yeah.

Kate Mason (3:04)

If you look at the money spent between 2009 and 2018, Manchester City's net spend was over a billion. And in the same period, Liverpool's was 337 million pounds, Rob. So it meant that Liverpool, they had to sell in order to spend, which was something that City weren't really doing. And that meant, presumably, you're going to tell me in this period that their transfer business, perhaps Liverpool's, perhaps looks even better than we thought at the time.

Rob Green (3:31)

I wouldn't say it wasn't amazing at the time in terms of they signed a lot of players in the way that Chelsea are kind of laughed at now for buying all of Brighton's players. Liverpool were laughed at then for buying all of Southampton's better players. Some of them were better, more hits than others. But from the point of Jurgen Klopp signing, I think that it changed and they were building something and he started to add pieces to the picture where it really fit. Obviously, Alisson was a big one. Van Dijk, they spent record number of fees on and Alisson as well. But what he did better than anything was got them to stay. They stayed for such a long time and some are still there and still towards the top of the Premier League and top of their game.

You're looking at that side, that period in and up to it.

Other than Brendan Rodgers being there for a period of time, there was a lot of managers, there was a turnover and therefore a lot of signings and making mistakes on top of other people's mistakes. You've got a lot of guys in a merry-go-round, in a turnstile side way. Then Jurgen Klopp comes in, it feels a lot more systematic, a lot more purposeful. Speaking to the players that signed for him, they signed for him and they signed for the badge of Liverpool, which I think had an advantage over Manchester City. So they're already ahead of Manchester City, let's not make no mistake about it. So in and amongst it all, you're saying, was it that good? Well, possibly not, but what they did do when they got it right, they made it stick.