Jurgen Klopp worked his magic for Liverpool against champions Leicester at the weekend.
The German’s Liverpool side put on an impressive display of football against last year’s Premier League winners at the newly beefed-up Anfield stadium.
The pace, power and movement of Klopp’s men was too much for Leicester as the goals went flying in from Firmino, Adam Lallana and newboy Sadio Mane to seal an emphatic 4-1 win.
But one minor change by Klopp might well have made a big difference to the game…and it wasn’t anything to do with his team or tactics.
The former Borussia Dortmund boss ordered the colour of the nets on the goal to be changed before the game.
Traditionally – well for the past four years at least – Liverpool have had red nets behind the goal. But Klopp insisted these be changed to classic white netting ahead of the clash with Claudio Ranieiri’s men.
It was an eleventh hour change after the first team trained at Anfield on Thursday ahead of Saturday’s late kick off.
But it had nothing to do with superstition or even aesthetics. Liverpool’s official website explained the reason why Klopp demanded the late change and it was to give his players a better eye for goal.
Klopp and his backroom staff noticed the red netting during Thursday’s session blended in with the red background of the Kop too much.
The man himself wanted the goal to be more visible in the players’ peripheral vision with the hope of leading to more goals being scored by his side against Leicester, according to the club website.
As the majority of fans behind both goals wear red on matchdays, it was felt by Klopp and his staff that the red netting wasn’t as striking to the eye as classic white during the games.
It’s not the first time this has been the case either, with Roy Evans speaking in 1995 of a similar problem of his players being able to distinguish the net against the red backdrop of the Kop.
It certainly didn’t do any harm to Liverpool’s performance as they banged in four goals against Leicester. It looks like the white nets will be in place at Anfield for the rest of the 2016/17 season.
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