Klopp 3-4 Guardiola: The defining stats of a great Premier League rivalry
We might just be seeing Jurgen Klopp face Pep Guardiola for the last time ever on Sunday. A first ever major final meeting in the FA Cup would be the most fitting way to end one of English football’s great rivalries, but we may have to make do with yet another Title Decider between two managers who have changed the face of the Premier League.
Tiki-taka vs Gegenpress, they’ve evolved to move towards a tactical middle ground during a post-mind games era defined by the respect they have for each other. Press conference jousting has made way for intense, absorbing tactical battles between two teams built in their managers’ image.
Theirs is the only meeting between two English top-flight managers who have won all four major trophies, with their 21 clashes across all competition yielding 3.2 goals per game, well above the average goals-per-game rate in the Premier League in that time.
There were a couple of wonderful 2-2s as they went head-to-head for the title in 2021-22, and scores besides of 5-0, 4-3, 4-0, 1-4, 3-2 and 2-3. Neither Liverpool nor Manchester City would have been as good without the other, and the Premier League would have suffered hugely without them pushing each other to reach new heights. Liverpool finishing with the third-highest points tally ever in 2018/19 and coming second is the greatest example of that mutualism.
Major trophies: Pep 12-5 Klopp
That’s 0.63 trophies per season in English football for Klopp as things stand, which puts him below Manuel Pellegrini (0.75), Gianluca Vialli (0.67) and Juande Ramos (1.00).
Wins vs: Pep 6-8 Klopp
City are +8 in the goal difference stakes but even when you add their time at Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund into the mix, Klopp still edges it 12-11. Antonio Conte is the only other manager to have faced a Guardiola team more than five times and come out on top; he won four of their seven meetings.
Points per game: Pep 2.34-2.08 Klopp
Bound to be a win for Guardiola given City have won the title in five of the last six seasons, but fallow years under Klopp being particularly fallow also plays its part here, with points tallies of 69 in 2020-21 and 67 last season way below City’s nadir of 78 in Pep’s first season, which is a fair way worse than anything that’s come since.
Goals per game: Pep 2.52-2.23 Klopp
At least 0.50 of Pep’s score comes courtesy of games against Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth. You’re more likely to see Manchester City score five goals than none.
Goals conceded per game: Pep 0.88- 1.11 Klopp
Mostly Trent Alexander-Arnold’s fault.
Net spend: Pep £627m-£254m Klopp
The Real Quiz according to Liverpool fans, and in fairness, it’s a significant difference. Although a net spend of £28m per season isn’t even an Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. It’s half an Alisson, or – as we much prefer to think of it – six Ragnar Klavans. But hang on a second…
Net spend per major trophy: Pep £52m-£51m Klopp
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Put your net spend cigars away Liverpool fans, because there’s a twist in the tale, a Real Quiz curveball, a bombshell, a cat amongst the pigeons, and it is thus: City have spent £1m more per major trophy under Guardiola than Liverpool have spent under Klopp. A win of sorts, but we suspect not quite the landslide many would have hoped for.