Many fans would be ecstatic with the news of Jurgen Klopp signing for Liverpool, but there are a few skeptics who remind people of the first half that Dortmund had to deal with last season. Dortmund were horrendous in the first half of the season, well at least results wise. The club were 17th at the halfway mark of the season and had only won four games from their first 17 in the league.
By comparison, Rodgers was having a better time at Liverpool, sure the loss of Luis Suarez was never easy to make up but the Reds did invest a lot in their squad, but that did not materialize for them. The Reds didn’t have the greatest of starts to the season but at the halfway mark they were in 9th place, certainly not where they wanted to be, especially with such high hopes falling on them from that wonderful season in 2013-14.
If we are to compare the performances of both managers, it does have a striking resemblance. While Rodgers was hit and miss throughout the season, Klopp was just plain our horrible in the first half and had it been any other team, he could have gotten the sack, fortunately his second half was the saving grace as Dortmund did finish the season in seventh and also played in the German Cup final, which they lost.
Both teams struggled at home, Liverpool would just 10 out of their 18 games at home while Dortmund won 9 out of their 17 games at home. Liverpool did pick up in the second half of the season as Rodgers tweaked his side a bit and they went on a magnificent run of clean sheets and an unbeaten run of 13 games in the league, in comparison with Dortmund, the longest unbeaten streak they had last season was for seven games in a row in the league.
Europe was the real differentiator between the two managers. Dortmund and Liverpool were given fairly decent draws and while Dortmund topped their group, which featured Arsenal, Anderlecht and Galatasaray, Liverpool faltered in an easy group which had Real Madrid, Basel and Ludogorets, eventually escaping into the Europa League. Although both teams were knocked out in the next round, Dortmund lost to Juventus while Liverpool lost to Besiktas, Dortmund did end up playing better football and made more money from their European sojourn.
However, it was Liverpool who ultimately had a better league season as they only lost 12 times compared to the 14 by Dortmund. Rodgers also was able to turn things around in terms of trying out new formations, which wasn’t the way to go for Klopp at Dortmund. Sure he tried a couple of different things but ultimately went back to his trusted formation of the 4-2-3-1 as he finished the season on a high.
The lack of a real goal scorer was probably the biggest problem for Liverpool last season as their top goal scorer was Steven Gerrard with just 9 goals in the Premier League and a total of 13 in the season. Dortmund, on the other hand had the services of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who smashed home 23 goals in total for the black and yellows.
There might not have been much to separate the two clubs overall but the passion and determination shown by Dortmund to correct the first half of the season does let them shade ahead of Liverpool and just proves how good Klopp was in fixing the problem that he actually created at Dortmund in the first half of the season.