The first Anfield age of Klopp is over. Can he summon another one? 

An ageing, tiring, injury-hit squad, a backroom in flux, a tactical mindset flagging – a great manager finds himself at a crossroads

REBUILD OR BUST?: Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp finds himself at a crossroads. Pic: PA Photo

Almost all managerial lives end in failure. That’s the nature of the job, or at least of the way modern football tends to interpret it. You arrive and you win, or you are ousted. And if you win, you had better keep on winning, or you’ll be ousted.

There are very few second acts in modern English football, at least not at the same club. Bill Shankly had one, defeat by Watford in the FA Cup in 1970 bringing him to the belated acceptance that his first great Liverpool side was over and he needed to build another. But that was Shankly, and that was then. Today’s pressures are different: everything moves much quicker.