'From doubters to believers' - do Liverpool fans now want more?
From doubters to believers.
When Jurgen Klopp joined Liverpool in 2015 his message was clear.
Success would be fans believing his team could win the top prizes in football. Failure would be doubts over whether they have what it takes.
His football and infectious personality quickly won the hearts of the fan base, but it was trophies that his legacy was built on.
A crushing defeat by Real Madrid in the 2018 Champions League final fuelled the charge to glory in the competition a year later.
The first one was the big one. A year later, he brought the Premier League back to Liverpool for the first time in 30 years.
There were no more doubters, instead an expectation to win as many of the biggest trophies on offer.
In 2022, the Reds defeated Chelsea in both domestic cups to complete the set for Klopp.
However, the German fell just short in the Premier League title race again to Manchester City and lost another Champions League final to Real Madrid as a legacy-defining quadruple escaped his clutches.
You wonder whether if he had achieved 'the impossible' might Klopp then have sailed off into the sunset.
Disappointment and near misses is what fuelled Klopp to the Champions League and Premier League. Doing it again is seemingly an even harder task.
His worst campaign in 2022-23 followed as the 56-year-old lost his ability to bounce back. The energy was seeping away and he announced this would be his final crack at climbing Everest once again.
But now, in the space of a week, Liverpool's second quadruple charge – with the Europa League substituted for the Champions League – blew up in a matter of fixtures.
The dream send-off was dissolving in front of a weathered Klopp after defeats by Manchester United, Crystal Palace and Atlanta.
A nearly-man on so many occasions. The 2023-24 season appears to be falling into that category again, with only the League Cup as solace.
The goal was to change fans from doubters to believers. The level of current disappointment shows his success in that.
But when your first trophy is the Champions League, any doubt soon turns to expectation. Six games remain in the Premier League title race to end everything on a perfect high.
Klopp achieved all he set out for, but do fans actually now want to win trophies rather than just believing they can?
