Dion Fanning: One last time, Klopp welcomes Pep into the wild

Pep Guardiola has only won once at Anfield. It was February 2021, the season of lockdowns when football was played behind closed doors. At an empty and undaunting Anfield, Manchester City beat Liverpool 4-1.

“For many years we were not able to win here,” Guardiola said afterwards, as City won at Liverpool for the first time in 18 years. “Hopefully next time we can do it with people. Anfield is so intimidating."

Last season when Manchester City lost at Anfield, Guardiola had a variation on the theme. “This is Anfield,” he said, three words that in this context showed his frustration. Manchester City had a goal disallowed, the only time the referee had stopped play, Guardiola claimed, during the game. “The game was calm and then after the goal was disallowed and after they scored a goal, it was the real Anfield.”

Anfield represents chaos for Guardiola (it also represents defeat), who might be even more prone to conspiratorial thinking if his club didn’t have so many advantages. Chaos is an enemy for Guardiola and how he likes to play.

It may have been different when he had Messi at Barcelona, but his time at the Etihad has been characterised by exercising control and for ensuring that players are altered to become part of his system. There aren’t many places that can have as powerful an impact when it comes to dismantling the system as Anfield.

For Klopp and for Liverpool, wildness and anarchy are qualities to be cherished. Klopp is a compelling figure in part because he so rarely resorts to cliche. The refrain that you play the game not the occasion seems like the kind of boilerplate mantra he would relish subverting. What is the game without the occasion? As he plays his final games at Anfield, Klopp is turning every