Back to the future for Liverpool as control gives way to constant clatter | Jonathan Wilson

Is the tactical wheel turning for Jürgen Klopp, the manager whose guided chaos changed the modern game?

‘Something,” Jürgen Klopp said in February 2019 after Liverpool had drawn 0-0 at home against Bayern, “changed in the world of football – everyone adapted to it and we have to make sure we adapt.”

He was talking about a new-found willingness from top teams to defend. In as far as it has been possible to trace anything in the vastly changed environment of Covid-19, he was probably right – and yet watching Liverpool beat Atlético Madrid 3-2 on Tuesday, nobody could have believed football has entered a new age of attrition. And in that, perhaps, lies one of the two doubts that lurk behind Liverpool’s broadly excellent start to the season.

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