For all his quirks and quips, there is a deadly serious side to Jürgen Klopp, whose anger and exasperation were evident after West Ham dismantled Liverpool on Saturday.
Klopp complained that his players failed to carry out a basic game plan and lacked the intensity to compete with the opposition, and was asked how he could address it.
“I can’t change a lot. I can’t explain. You want a few sentences, I would need to write a book.”
Andy Carroll celebrates scoring West Ham's second
It summed up his frustration after Liverpool took another step backwards after successive 1-0 victories over Sunderland and Leicester City. West Ham were excellent, outplaying Liverpool in every department and fully deserving the victory via goals from Michail Antonio and Andy Carroll.
But it was the manner of defeat that upset Klopp so much. Enner Valencia was given time and space to pick out Antonio for a diving header in the 10th minute, and Mark Noble had the same luxury when he crossed for Carroll to power past right-back Nathaniel Clyne and make it 2-0 in the 55th minute.
West Ham could have had more. Manuel Lanzini struck a post, and Simon Mignolet denied Carroll and Antonio further goals, while Liverpool had little in reply except for an Emre Can shot against the woodwork and a Lucas Leiva header cleared off the line.
Christian Benteke rarely threatened, and Michael Owen was critical of the Belgian striker in his TV commentary. Klopp did not agree: “It’s not the game to pick one player out when we all did not do our best job,” said the manager.
“Take this from me – we could not do what we should have done at very precise moments and that’s why we lost. We can talk about good crosses from West Ham, and also bad defending. But the rest of the game, when we had the ball in and around the box, we didn’t shoot at the right moment, didn’t pass at the right moment, didn’t play the ball, had no consistency in our crosses and things like this.
“I can’t find any excuses. I’m not looking for them either, but I can’t find any.”
Michail Antonio heads West Ham in front
Clearly, Klopp’s task is a huge one, transforming an expensive but inconsistent side into the sort of title contenders they were two years ago when they had Luis Suárez, Raheem Sterling and Steven Gerrard, all now departed. The injured Daniel Sturridge is clearly missed, too, as Liverpool show the form of a mid-table side. Only five teams have scored fewer than their total of 22 goals, and only one team in the top half of the table have conceded more than their tally of 24 goals.
Liverpool's Lucas Leiva received a yellow card for this challenge on West Ham's Mark Noble in the first-half
Carroll is beginning to show the form that prompted Liverpool to pay a club record £30 million for him five years ago, athough Slaven Bilic warned against talk of an England recall.
Nervous watching for Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp
“To talk about the Euros is wrong for him. If England is a serious national team trying to win the Euros then you can’t talk about the national team when the player has scored two or three goals. He’s got all the quality but he has to show it on a longer scale.”
The win earned West Ham manager Slaven Bilic some breathing space
But Bilic is delighted that Carroll looks to be fully fit again after three injury-hit seasons. “He looks really good, he didn’t drop for one single minute, he was running, tracking back, doing everything. He is fit and it’s all about him now. Is he going to maintain and progress and look after himself and train hard and rest, or is he going to go the other way? He has a history in that and I’m not his dad, I can’t demand things from him but I’m expecting that to be fair.”
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