Liverpool v Manchester United: Moderniser Klopp makes Mourinho look like yesterday’s man

They are united in charisma, divided by loyalties, footballing principles and personalities. When Jurgen Klopp and Jose Mourinho reconvene Monday night, it is with a shared history and similar objectives. Richard Jolly reports.

Jurgen Klopp has lost only once to Jose Mourinho in five previous encounters. The pair lock horns again in the Premier League on monday night when Klopp's Liverpool take on Mourinho's Manchester UniteShow more

• Liverpool v Manchester United, Monday, 11pm, BeIN Sports HD

They are united in charisma, divided by loyalties, footballing principles and personalities. When Jurgen Klopp and Jose Mourinho reconvene Monday night, it is with a shared history and similar objectives.

Theirs has the making of an epic rivalry. The giant Klopp, with his huge grin and innate likeability, can seem a voice – or perhaps a laugh – of optimism. At times Mourinho, with his willingness to foster conspiracy theories, can appear a representative of more cynical times. Klopp’s teams are a manifestation of him: energetic, forward-thinking, forever trying to take the initiative. Mourinho’s sides reflect the caution that underpins most of his decisions, his analytical thinking and his awareness of every obstacle. He is reactive, Klopp proactive.

• Jurgen Klopp wary of Wayne Rooney threat ahead of Anfield clash

Liverpool and Manchester United like to imagine themselves opposites. Now perhaps they actually are. United spent a world record sum on Paul Pogba in the summer and £145 million (Dh649m) in total. Liverpool made a transfer-market profit. United have propped up the table in the division's running statistics. Liverpool have topped it. United scored a mere 49 league goals last season. Liverpool are the division's top scorers in the 12 months since Klopp took charge.

His first league win came at Mourinho's expense, a 3-1 triumph over Chelsea when Liverpool swarmed all over their opponents. It was the Premier League's first true glimpse of the "impulse", as the German had termed it, of his pressing game being deployed brilliantly. It was not Mourinho's first sight of it. The 2013 Uefa Champions League semi-final first leg ranks as one of the seminal games of his career. It not only ensured that Mourinho would not be the manager to win "La Decima" for Real Madrid, or that he would not become the first manager to win the European Cup with three different clubs. It made a moderniser look yesterday's man.

Klopp's Borussia Dortmund scored four times. Indeed, Robert Lewandowski scored four goals. Dortmund 4 Real Madrid 1, Mourinho's heaviest Champions League defeat. "The players considered the game to a be a display of incompetence from Mourinho," wrote Diego Torres in The Special One, his account of Mourinho's time in Madrid.

True or not, it was the point of no return. He secured a rather meaningless victory in the second leg, but it remains his only win in five meetings with Klopp. It leaves the United manager with the burden of proof and not merely because Liverpool, with triumphs at the Emirates Stadium and Stamford Bridge to their name already this season, have showed they can defeat the contenders.

Mourinho has to find an answer to Klopp’s brand of football. After last October’s defeat, part of Chelsea’s remarkable unravelling, he gave a bizarre interview where he said five times he had “nothing to say” while five further answers were either the word “no” or variants thereof.

The great communicator was bafflingly monosyllabic. Whatever he is like after the final whistle on Monday, footballing eloquence is required. There is an emerging theory that Mourinho, with his fondness for a low defensive block and counter-attacking, is fast becoming a man out of time.

The tactical trend equates to a running revolution. It is led by Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City, all under the auspices of managers in their forties. Their sides are packed with pacey players. It is no coincidence United have sprinted less than any other side. Mourinho added Zlatan Ibrahimovic to a group already including Wayne Rooney, Marouane Fellaini, Michael Carrick, Daley Blind and Juan Mata. Even dropping the captain has not turned United into a side of Liverpool’s speed. So another approach is required, to prevent Liverpool from accelerating away from United and Mourinho from looking Klopp’s antithesis and inferior.

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