Jurgen Klopp’s management style is very similar to that of Pep Guardiola.

Jurgen Klopp’s management style is very similar to that of Pep Guardiola.

Anybody who has read any articles on the simplicity of Pep Guardiola’s football philosophy and management style will have wondered, as we did, why nobody has just copied it to try and achieve success.

After all, how difficult can it be? The only requirements are a team with a seemingly endless amount of money and then the know-how to fill that team with players who can play football.

Pep’s way of thinking is easy to follow. As long as his team has the ball, then the opponents can’t score. His team, in some games, can have the ball for around 80% of the time making an opposition goal unlikely.

This, of course, creates the illusion that Manchester City have a good defence which, in fact, they don’t. When an opposition team are good enough to take the game to City then their defence can be exposed.

The problem is that not many teams are either good enough or brave enough to try this tactic.

The last ones to do so were Liverpool. who beat City 4-3 at Anfield and, at one stage of the game, led 4-1.

The similarities between Jürgen Klopp’s team and that of Guardiola are striking.

Both are excellent on the offensive and both are suspect on the defensive. Both have forward players of no more than average height. Sané, Sterling and Agüero are the current front three at City whilst Mané, Salah and Firmino are the Liverpool equivalent.

Liverpool exposed the City defence for what it is whilst City did exactly the same to the Liverpool back line.

There is a big difference in the quality of goalkeepers and this is something Klopp needs to address. If he really agrees with the Guardiola way of playing then he needs a world-class keeper, something drastically lacking at present.

Klopp is also some way behind Guardiola in the evolution of his team and they have yet to find a way of consistently keeping the ball throughout the course of a game. Their average possession statistics are actually only the fourth best in the Premier League, behind City, who are first, Arsenal in second and Tottenham Hotspur who are third.

This is how the possession stats look taking an average of all games, home and away.

1. Manchester City – At home – 71.0%. Away – 71.5%. Average = 71.2%

2. Arsenal – At home – 62.8%. Away – 60.5%. Average = 61.7%

3. Tottenham – At home – 63.6%. Away – 57.8%. Average = 60.7%

4. Liverpool – At home – 58.7%. Away – 57.6%. Average = 58.2%

So, although Jürgen Klopp’s team are the closest in style and attacking football to City, they still have some way to go to catch them.

The only surprise here is that Klopp, if he is indeed taking a leaf from the Guardiola coaching manual, is as far behind as he is.

It is worth remembering that Klopp has a longer history of coaching against Guardiola than any other top six manager given their time in Germany when the German managed Borussia Dortmund and the Spaniard was in charge of Bayern Münich.

In truth though, and at the time, although they were the two big clubs in Germany, Dortmund were never going to catch up with Bayern, so maybe style of play wasn’t that important in getting results.

In England, where there are six clubs vying for the top four places, winning is far more difficult and winning consistently is the key to trophies.

Klopp seems to have realised that he needs a certain style of play to win anything in England and it is also serving him quite well in Europe.

Maybe it is just coincidence that his way is very similar to that of Pep Guardiola, maybe it is by design. He’ll probably tell us one day, but not just yet.