King Klopp leads return to royalty

Liverpool's Champions League journey suggests City will have a new rival for the Premier League next season

WHAT a round for the Champions League! Two weeks of epic drama, a rattled Big Three reduced to two, the Big Two superstars reduced to one.
And Liverpool looking like the coolest kids on the block.
Where to start? If Cristiano Ronaldo stole the first and final acts, the all-Premier League battle provided the best plot – and sub-plots.
Wrapped around cruelly timed local derbies, they could be the making of one managerial reputation and the breaking of another.
Seeing Pep Guardiola, head in hands when his players needed him to be hands on, the world's most hyped manager looked not just banished but in need of another sabbatical.
He'd had his dream start but this was his worst nightmare – a recurring nightmare.
"Maybe it's me," he had suggested of the sudden collapses his teams have suffered in Champions League matches. Well, at an expectant Etihad on Tuesday he precipitated another.
Like Barcelona and Bayern before them, Manchester City are like the marathon runner who starts too fast – and hits the wall. After warning them not to lose their cool, he did precisely that.
In contrast, Jurgen Klopp had paced it to perfection. He, too, can have his Vesuvius moments on the touchline, but he simmers down just as quickly. And, unlike Pep, he saved the big eruption for the dressing room.
We are told there were fireworks at halftime, but Klopp is always in control and if the Catalan's self-combustion has made the headlines, the German deserves immense credit for steering his side this far.
Ridiculed for their early season defensive woes and failure to remedy them, this has been a triumph of patience and playing the long game: for a manager who won't settle for second best and owners who believe the smartness of the investment is as significant as its financial cost.
Virgil van Dijk epitomises that with the effect he's had on the entire defence. The way Dejan Lovren and Loris Karius are playing could save the club tens of millions for a new centreback and keeper.
Liverpool fear no one and, with both Bayern and Real Madrid looking less than convincing, this could be a golden chance to lift Old Big Ears for a sixth time and claim third place on the all time winners list behind only Real and AC Milan.
Just reaching the last four represents a leap forward in their planning. But with Klopp's record in the transfer market matching his tactical nous and motivational powers, the long-awaited return of the club to what the fans love to call European royalty.
Domestically, they are considered the more likely candidates to rival City – an amazing achievement for a club at its lowest ebb when the petrodollars first began to rev up the Blue Moon.
With Martin Broughton as interim chairman and Roy Hodgson (wince!) as manager, they slumped to 19th in the League, lost at Anfield to Blackpool and on pens to Northampton in the League Cup.
Weighed down by the debts accrued by Hicks and Gillett, it looked as if Liverpool would be the club that suffered most from the Sheikh's arrival at City – much as Arsenal were muscled out when Roman Abramovich rocked up at Chelsea.
They were buying the likes of Christian Poulsen and Paul Konchesky, and Anfield was a morgue. Now it's back to the fearsome cauldron of old and where Europe's elite fear to tread.
For City, it has not always been smooth sailing but Pep was supposed to be the clincher: richest club + best coach = top dog. It's seldom that simple.
Pep is a brilliant coach, yes, and he's been hailed a genius, but he's looking increasingly like a flawed genius. And lately, he's been a tortured soul.
Yes, he masterminded the best club side ever and polished the diamond that is Lionel Messi. But it is seven years since he last won the Champions League after which he took one sabbatical when the pressure on him reached bursting point. You fear he may not be too far off that now.
With another tanker-load of cash expected to be dumped on him to further strengthen the team, the pressure on him next season will be even greater.
Undisputed is his ability to get more out of players and create a breathtaking attacking force. But sustaining it seems the problem.
He doesn't miss a trick and even had the ball boys trained to return the ball to play in an instant. Even the tea ladies were said to be on their toes. But as Fergie warned, even the great managers have blips.
In all three defeats, the marginal decisions (and woodwork) went against City but Pep got team and tactics wrong. And he should never have given the referee – especially when there's history between them – even half a chance to send him off.
That did for City, leaderless and rudderless, as much as Salah's goal and you wonder what the bigwigs sitting around him really thought.
He did manage to contact his bench but could now face a three-game ban for doing so. Where was the laundry basket and woolly hat when it was needed?
Jose Mourinho can still teach him a trick or two on and off the field, but with disunity in the stands and the dressing room, he cannot muster the backing that Klopp can.
However you look at it, the Liverpool boss looks the bigger threat to Pep now. Assuming Pep stays the course.
Raw passion beats prawn sandwiches
The Champions League needed this, the game needed it. Yes, it boiled over at times with the City bus attack, Pep and Gigi Buffon, but what we got was raw emotion, great football, incredible comebacks, giant-killing and a few gilded reputations taking a knock.
There was even a fight in the City's Tunnel Club! What we've seen in the past two weeks is a return to raw passion over prawn sandwiches, real football over the sanitised version. And the game is all the better for it.
Bob’s latest book, Living the Dream, is available at all major bookstores and Bob will be signing copies at the Be Bodog’s Best Football Pundit Event & Contest at The Shamrock Irish Sports Bar, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, on Saturday evening, 14th April 2018. Games being shown are Southampton vs Chelsea and Swansea vs Everton.