The Evolution of klopp's tactics

[Nes1995]

Hey everyone this is my first time creating a topic in this forum but im really exciting to share my tactical experience with you guys and show you some wonderful stuff

this post has helped me a lot and a lot of the ideas have come from here

@Experienced Defender also learned a lot from experienced defender mainly the defensive side of football and how to make your team rock solid in the defence

also using Total football analysis from YouTube helped a lot

 

Klopp, the genius on counter pressing and counter attacking football!

 

1:Pressing systems

During his time in Dortmund, his style of play was a lot different from what it is now.

Klopp's Dortmund focused on transition moments, his approach was to quickly press the opposition after loosing the ball this is obviously called "Gegenpressing" and after winning it back to quickly transition from defence to attack but in order to execute this properly his team had to play a narrow shape and this is why in his Dortmund team he tended to play or regain possession more through one side of the pitch.

as you can see in this picture they were focusing play down the right side of the pitch and pressing there also.

 

At Liverpool Klopp's pressing approach became even more proactive with sometimes also using a mid-press mainly to set up pressing traps, Horizontal passes are also a pressing trigger. They use the wingers (mane, salah) to start the press by forcing the centre backs to play into central areas but in order to do this he had to change his formation to a 4-3-3.

forcing teams to go central and eventually forcing them to go long.

2: Attacking what changed for Klopp when he joined Liverpool

Attacking at Dortmund was easier then attacking with Liverpool, because Dortmund was a bit more passive, teams played more aggressive against Dortmund allowing Klopp to create majority of their chances from counter attacks.

Klopp was forced to improve his tactics he could no more use a narrow attacking shape with players shifting towards one side of the pitch.

So he changed by overloading the central areas of the pitch and the half spaces and position 1 winger in each side.

here the central midfielders are the key for allowing your fullbacks to get up really high, this is very similar to peps inverted full backs but instead Klopp uses his midfielders to play this role instead of his full backs.

very simple why this is because Arnold and Robertson are a lot stronger out wide their crossing abilities and pace are just to good to be put in the midfield.

Teams have to be really good to play against these types of system because they have to choose to either give up central areas of the pitch or cover wide areas either way one of them will be free and with these type of players available you will get punished for it.

3: The tactic!  "This is probably the closest I've got to replicating a real life tactic"

It might not be perfect but its pretty damn close and the results are just unreal 

As you can see in this picture Wijnaldum like the inverted wingback is covering the left side for Roberston and Henderson will do the same if we are playing on the right side of the pitch but I've giving Henderson a bit more freedom to get in the box especially against park the buss teams.

 

The counter pressing system

Its very hard to create a pressing trap like liverpool in FM at least from my experience (if someone knows please teach me!)

The pressing can change sometimes just like Klopp does as well if I see a team who is playing from the back I rise my Defensive line to "much higher" and a "Higher line of engagement"

But if teams are playing more direct and not playing from the back I change this to "higher defensive line" and a "normal line of engagement"

I most of the time never use prevent short goal keeper distribution I feel this turns my pressing from my front 3 to aggressive giving the opponent a quicker passing option to their full backs

 

 

The front 3

reason for the front 3 was simple 

1: Pressing was way better especially using roles like pressing forwards these are roles built for Gegenpressing

2: I want my front 3 inside the box and using the half spaces

3: gives my wing backs even more room

I've played 19 games so far with this tactic and salah is my top goal scorer with 15 goals, with Mane as my second best scorer with 12 goals, firmino with 9 scored 

 

The midfield 3

Ball winning midfielders again a role built to win the ball back quickly 

Wijandum with defence duty simple because Roberston is more attacking I want him to cover that space

Instructions:  "Stay wider" note he has "hold position" built into the role so it gives him the position we seen earlier in the post

Henderson another BWM but this time as support he does the same thing but sometimes he pops into the box after Robertson crosses and scores some awesome goals

Instructions:  "Stay wider", "Shot less often", "drible less"

Fabinho his the heartbeat of the team usually the player giving those killer balls to Roberston on the left for the cross

No PI's

 

The back four

 

Simple back 4 especially for the type of players Liverpool have it makes sense

Arnolds WB

Instructions: More direct passing, cross more often, cross from deep

And this is also why I went with BPD on the left simple because "More direct passing" on Arnold " by the way Arnold has 23 assists in 19 games"

A lot of my goals have come from Counter attacks and crosses 

Team instructions I play around with some games but I mainly only change the out of possession like I mentioned in the "The counter pressing system"

 

Hope everyone enjoys reading this and feel free to ask questions.

Go test this out with other teams like I said I've only played 19 games with this tactic but so far its unstoppable 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by Nes1995

[SixPointer]

Really like this 👍🏻 Nice post. I played a klopp brand of football at my first save this year. And used inside forwards. Love the pressing forward idea! Great work 

[EnigMattic1]

That's interesting, seeing Mane and Salah actually in the middle. I've always seen them in the AML and AMR positions respectively. I may have to try that as a secondary tactic. 

[Strikerir1]

I think this might be a really good recreation as I've always felt the best way to replicate the front 3 is putting them at striker I just didn't knew how to set it up