Klopp ensures Liverpool’s attacking play is well-rehearsed

At first it seems so instinctive. Sadio Mane darts menacingly forward, Roberto Firmino drifts wide to wreak havoc.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp after the Premier League match between Liverpool and Watford at Anfield on Sunday.

At first glance it seems so ­instinc­tive. Sadio Mane darts ­menac­ingly forward, Roberto Firmino drifts wide and into space and Philippe Coutinho links seam­lessly as all three wreak havoc against opposition defences.

And yet the great contradiction at the heart of Liverpool’s ­revival is that the speed and fluidity that baffles rivals every week is the result of many hours spent on the training ground. What seems an unstructured way of playing owes all to repetition.

It is on the pitches at Melwood, Jurgen Klopp’s “headquarters of football” where the methods that have propelled his side to the summit of the Premier League have been ingrained, with patterns and movements rigidly drilled into his players until they become so second nature as to appear off the cuff.

This is how Klopp, along with his assistant Zeljko Buvac, who has been known to physically drag players into position on the practice ground, works.

The Liverpool manager’s temper is far more likely to snap if he senses a drop in tempo during a training session than in the dressing room after a match. The reasoning is that if he needs to raise his voice after a game, then it is too late because points have been lost.

A familiar command ringing around Melwood will be for Liverpool’s attacking players to find “half spaces” or “pockets” and, as Watford can attest after their 6-1 pummelling at Anfield on Sunday, the message is sticking.

Adam Lallana, all skill and quick feet, is central to this and there are certain triggers that will spark the rapier thrusts that have yielded 30 goals in 11 league games this season.

In pre-season training in the US, the colour of a bib would be called out so as to spark the start of the press that puts Liverpool on the front foot.

In games that is not practical — it could be a particular movement from the opposition that tells the Liverpool players to put their foot to the floor — but the work Klopp’s squad has in the bank means that they are alert to the possibilities.

This is where trust and freedom play their part with Coutinho and Firmino, the Brazilians, claiming to have a telepathic understanding. There is still room for improvement, however. Klopp bemoaned a spell against Watford on the weekend that left his side without the ball “for three minutes”.

And such is the emphasis placed on training that Liverpool will pull out all the stops to ensure Coutinho and Firmino return from international duty at the earliest opportunity.

It was the same last month when the rivalry with Chelsea and Manchester City was put to one side and the £120,000 ($196,000) cost to hire a Gulfstream private jet was split between the clubs to bring their respective Brazilians home from Venezuela. Paris Saint-Germain also chipped in.

Brazil face Argentina and then Peru over the next eight days and if the expense seems outlandish, then Klopp will deem it worth it again if it means the availability of his duo for one extra session ­before the game away to Southampton on November 19.

But just as the devastating movements on the pitch do not happen by chance, it is no coincidence that Liverpool have assembled a flexible front line that does not boast an identikit No 9.

The club’s interest in Firmino, for example, goes back to when he was a scrawny 15-year-old at ­Figueirense in Brazil, with the ­reports from Liverpool’s South American scouts picking up on his underdeveloped physique.

Liverpool stepped up their scouting missions during the 2012-13 season, when they compiled a dossier after watching ­Firmino 24 times in games and training with 1899 Hoffenheim in Germany.

While Brendan Rodgers had to be convinced to take the player in the summer of 2015, the forward’s presence was one of the reasons Klopp was enticed by the prospect of breaking his sabbatical and stepping back into management.

It was in the game away to Chelsea last November that Klopp used Firmino in a central role for the first time, with Coutinho and Lallana in support, and it has remained his favourite formation — to the frustration of first Christian Benteke and now Daniel Sturridge.

Mane’s recruitment from Southampton in June was a result of Liverpool looking to add pace and flexibility to their front three and followed a similarly exhaustive scouting process, beginning when he played for Senegal at the London Olympics in 2012 and then continued during his time at Red Bull Salzburg.

The attacker was Liverpool’s first choice ahead of Ousmane Dembele, who joined Borussia Dortmund, Ahmed Musa, now of Leicester City, Mohamed Salah, presently with Roma, and Leroy Sane and Gabriel Jesus, who were signed by Manchester City.

Mane was viewed as a player with experience but one who, at 24, was young enough to develop. He is proving the game-changer that Klopp thought he would be, although Liverpool’s strength is that goals are being spread throughout their ranks. Diego Costa and Eden Hazard have scored 16 of Chelsea’s 26 league goals, 61.6 per cent, while Mane and Firmino are responsible for 11 of Liverpool’s 30, 36.6 per cent.

THE TIMES