Faltering Liverpool are at a crossroads and Klopp is hard-pressed to find answers

Football never stops. Brian Clough despaired of the exhausting churn, the sense you could never enjoy a win because there was always another game – and that was before European group stages, Covid-afflicted calendars and winter World Cups. And it never stops changing: there are always new ideas or ways to thwart the old ideas. Standing still, as Peter Reid observed, is moving backwards.

That’s why the Hungarian double European Cup-winner Béla Guttmann spoke of the third year as being fatal for a coach. Your players get used to you, so your words lose their impact and minor irritations can become major frustrations. Other teams get used to you and work out strategies to counter you. Familiarity is stagnation is failure. That’s why the best managers, or at least those who aspire to build a dynasty, exist in a state of permanent evolution.

Saturdaymarked the seventh anniversary of Jürgen Klopp’s appointment as manager of Liverpool. It is testament to his abilities and charisma that he has thrived far beyond Guttmann’s limit. He is the longest-serving manager in the Premier League by 266 days; the fourth-longest serving in the league as a whole; and only Bill Shankly, Tom Watson and Bob Paisley have taken charge of more Liverpool matches.

But with Liverpool’s form uncertain, going into the weekend 11 points behind the league leaders, Arsenal, who they face on Sunday, it feels significant that he spent seven seasons at Mainz, then seven at Borussia Dortmund.

There are clear differences between the clubs: football has a habit of defying easy explanation, tempting as the notion of a seven-year itch may be. Mainz were operating on a limited budget, were relegated from the Bundesliga in Klopp’s sixth season and he resigned having