Wednesday 6 January 2016 09:53, UK
Jurgen Klopp has a big job to do at Liverpool but a cup win could make it easier, writes Adam Bate.
It was the thing that Brendan Rodgers couldn't deliver. There was, of course, the unlikely tilt at the Premier League title in 2013/14 - an achievement more remarkable than any cup run. But Liverpool isn't a club ready to define itself by glorious failure.
As a result, the FA Cup semi-final defeat to Aston Villa last season was just as damning. Outwitted by Tim Sherwood, that was no Wembley day out. Kenny Dalglish, for all the flaws of his second spell, had at least delivered the Capital One Cup in his one full season back at the helm.
Eighty days after that triumph, Dalglish was sacked. Trophies don't always buy time. FSG, the club's owners, know where they want to be - back in the Champions League and back at the top table. But that doesn't mean the Reds can't have some fun on the way.
The Capital One Cup fulfils that criteria. It's a competition in which the club has a storied history having won it four times in a row between 1981 and 1984. Given that those years were bookended by European Cup wins, this Liverpool side can hardly dismiss such a piece of silverware.
That's not Klopp's style anyway. This is the man who embraced the Europa League, insisting it is a "great tournament" and playfully chiding British reporters with the line: "Is the only difference you like the other tournament more?"
There are similar sentiments with the domestic cups. "This is a cup competition and it would be a waste of time to be in it and not try to win it," said Klopp on the eve of their semi-final with Stoke. "Only one team can have that luck, but I don't just want to get to the final, I want to win it."
After picking up a 1-0 win in the first leg at the Britannia Stadium thanks to Jordon Ibe's first-half goal, Liverpool are well placed to achieve the first part of that ambition. For Klopp, it would be a fifth consecutive season in which he has taken his team to a cup final.
Fortunately for Klopp, as good as Manchester City and Everton can be, there's no Bayern Munich waiting for him this time. The Bavarian giants denied him twice in German cup finals and once more, famously and heartbreakingly, in the Champions League final at Wembley.
He'll want to get back there. Unfinished business. But it could also be the start of something rather than mere closure. This team needs something to believe in and managers such as Jose Mourinho and Brian Clough have used the League Cup to give their teams a taste of success.
For all the excitement under Rodgers, he never could give these players that. Just as at Swansea, it may be that the Capital One Cup trophy comes after he has gone. If Klopp can do that, then his season of adjustment might be anything but a 'normal one' after all.
