European football expert rubbishes claims that Liverpool boss Klopp is suffering ‘seventh season curse’

Joe Williams
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp looks confused

European football journalist Andy Brassell insists claims that Jurgen Klopp is currently suffering from a ‘seventh season curse’ at Liverpool are false

During his time at both Mainz and Borussia Dortmund, Klopp failed to make it past his seventh season at the club with many putting it down to a coincidence.

However, with Liverpool struggling to become a consistently good side this campaign, some fans have claimed he could be suffering a ‘curse’ with Klopp now into his seventh campaign at Anfield.

Klopp left Mainz when he failed to get them promoted for a second time to the Bundesliga in 2008, while he departed Dortmund with the club in seventh position after previously winning two Bundesliga titles at the club.

Many have compared his situation at Dortmund to the one he is currently facing at Liverpool – who currently sit ninth in the Premier League table – but Brassell insists his slide at the Westfalenstadion happened over a long period of time.

“I think firstly you’ve got to bear in mind what happened to Dortmund didn’t happen suddenly,” Brassell told talkSPORT.

“It happened over a period of time. You know sometimes in our minds I think we think they went from being the champions of Germany and being in the Champions League final to being bottom of the Bundesliga on their backsides. That did not happen.

“They won the title in 2011 and 2012, they got the Champions League final in 2013 and were unlucky to lose to Bayern at Wembley and were certainly the better team in the first half of that game.

“But that [2012/13] season they finished [second] 25 points behind Bayern at the top. That’s when Dortmund started to get provoked by Bayern and I guess they were dealing with a whole load of expectations and demands which they found very difficult to balance.”

Liverpool were a couple of matches away from winning an unprecedented Quadruple last term before missing out on the Premier League title by a point to Manchester City and losing the Champions League final to Real Madrid.

Longer term issues impacted him at Dortmund, though, as Klopp’s side struggled with injuries to some of their top players, while he had to cope with big players, such as Robert Lewandowski and Mario Gotze, leaving the club.

“From there, it started to go wrong,” Brassell added. “They couldn’t field that same classic defence of [Lukasz] Piszczek, [Marcel] Schmelzer, [Mats] Hummels, [Neven] Subotic.

“They didn’t play together for another two years after the Champions League final due to various injuries and what have you.

“It was clear the physical toll caught up with Dortmund a little bit quicker than you would’ve expected.”

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