Liverpool’s progress under the German coach can be measured by visits to Vicarage Road, the first of which came on the eve of a Christmas party
The message was short and to the point, sent to each and every member Liverpool’s first-team squad.
“Whatever we do together, we do as well as we can,” it read. “And tonight that means we party.”
It came as a surprise to most. It had been expected that Liverpool’s Christmas party would be cancelled, with the team having been battered 3-0 at Watford earlier in the day. Instead, Jurgen Klopp saw an opportunity, a way to turn a negative into a positive.
There must be no moping, no dwelling on what was, by anyone’s standards, a chastening defeat. His players and staff, he insisted, must stay and enjoy themselves.
“Nobody leaves before 1am,” Klopp announced upon arrival at the plush Formby Hall resort, a dozen miles north of Anfield. Once inside, he and his wife, Ulla, took charge of the dancefloor. It was, say those who were there, a night to remember.
This was December 2015; the early months of Klopp’s Anfield reign, when doubters were not yet believers, when expectations were high but consistency was low. It was when Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo could strike fear into the men in red.
Adam Bogdan was in goal, Mamadou Sakho was in defence and Christian Benteke was up front. Back then, any mention of Liverpool and the Premier League title came with a punchline.
How the world has changed since.
This weekend, 50 months on, Liverpool return to Vicarage Road planning another party. This one will mark their ascent to the top of English football. Four more wins will give the Reds their first league championship since 1990.
They are already the European and world champions, and their Premier League record this season, 26 wins and a draw from 27 matches, is comfortably the best in the competition’s history. They have, remarkably, taken 110 points from their last 38 games, and victory over Watford will see them set a new English top-flight record of 19 straight wins.
Incredible progress, and certainly a long way removed from that initial visit to Vicarage Road under Klopp. Indeed, in many ways it is possible to chart Liverpool’s progress since then using their away games at Watford.
That first one, in 2015, was harrowing. Bogdan, making his league debut for the club, dropped a clanger within three minutes, allowing Nathan Ake to net. Ighalo and Deeney then threw Sakho and Martin Skrtel around like ragdolls.
“They just didn’t fancy the fight,” Deeney said. Skrtel was substituted before half-time – “he done a runner,” suggested Deeney – and would start only four more games before being sold at the end of the season.
The following season, Liverpool were scrapping for a Champions League place, arriving at Watford four games before the end of the campaign. They’d just lost at home to Crystal Palace – their last league defeat at Anfield, incidentally – and knew that any dropped points at Vicarage Road would leave them vulnerable. They needn’t have worried.
On a tense night, Emre Can’s sensational bicycle kick gave Klopp’s side a 1-0 win. Three weeks later, they clinched fourth place and a return to Europe’s top competition. They haven’t looked back.
They were back at Watford on the opening day of the following season. Liverpool’s summer had been dominated by talk of Virgil van Dijk, and their madcap 3-3 draw, where they led once and trailed twice, did little to calm supporters. Van Dijk would not arrive for another five months, as it happened, but at the other end of the pitch, Klopp’s masterplan could be seen at Vicarage Road.
Philippe Coutinho’s future was uncertain, but Liverpool were making plans to move past the wantaway Brazilian. They had a new front three, which they showed off at Watford. Roberto Firmino had been inherited by Klopp, but it was the signings of Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah which transformed the Reds.
Firmino, Mane and Salah all scored at Watford, Salah marking his debut with the first of 44 goals in all competitions that season. Liverpool’s attack was devastating, but their Van Dijk-less defence was anything but. Miguel Britos’ stoppage-time goal denied them the win that day. Offside, said Klopp, though he was alarmed by his side’s inability to defend set-pieces.
They conceded three to Watford, and two weeks later would be hammered 5-0 at Manchester City. Salah kept scoring, Mane and Firmino too, but prior to Van Dijk’s arrival in January, Liverpool conceded two or more goals on no fewer than nine occasions. Van Dijk, of course, changed Liverpool for the better, and by the time they came to Watford in November 2018, they boasted the Premier League’s meanest defence.
With new goalkeeper Alisson Becker in place, they’d conceded just five times in 13 league games, and they extended that run with a comprehensive away victory, scoring three times in the second half courtesy of Salah, Firmino and a stunning free-kick from Trent Alexander-Arnold.
“Wow!” remarked Klopp, who knew he had assembled a side capable of challenging Manchester City for the Premier League title. They would fall agonisingly short in the end, of course, but having clinched the European Cup at the end of last season, they returned this time around more motivated than ever.
Their form since has been extraordinary. So now, they return to Hertfordshire. A long way clear at the top of the Premier League, and a long way away from the team that Klopp first took there. There’ll be no party after Saturday’s game – win, lose or draw – but there are some big ones coming up on Merseyside in the next few weeks, you can be sure of that.