It has been 10 months since Jurgen Klopp's first outing as Liverpool boss, a goalless draw at Tottenham Hotspur. He returns to White Hart Lane this weekend in a match that will inevitably prompt comments on Liverpool's progression during his period in charge.
From the outset, it was obvious that Klopp's No. 1 priority was recreating the intense gegenpressing that became his trademark at Borussia Dortmund and made him revered across Europe. The shape would come later -- the attacking cohesion needed to wait. But from the very first whistle at White Hart Lane last October, Liverpool hunted in packs, harrying the man in possession. When the Reds won the ball they weren't entirely sure what to do with it, but Klopp was delighted with his side's early adjustment to his methods.
Tottenham, meanwhile, were doing something similar. They were pressing high up the pitch and forcing Liverpool into mistakes, but they lacked patience and guile in possession and didn't create as many chances as Mauricio Pochettino would have expected considering where they regained possession of the ball. Therefore, despite the high tempo and exciting nature of the contest, 0-0 was entirely right. Both sides were good at breaking up play, but failed to do much with it themselves.
Hopefully things will be different this time. Both teams have progressed significantly in terms of their possession play; Liverpool's potential in the final third became obvious with their extraordinary 4-1 victory over Manchester City in November, while Spurs became a slick, efficient passing machine over time. On Saturday, the pressing will set the backdrop rather than being the focal point and basis of the match.
Pochettino's approach is the more traditional form of pressing, which sees his side compress space in advanced positions. Tottenham remain compact and the defensive line stays very high. It's physically draining and relies on faultless cohesion from the players. It can look laughable if it goes wrong.
Klopp's gegenpressing is different: it's not simply about winning the ball in advanced positions, it's more about time than location. Liverpool regain possession immediately after it's lost, ensuring they're not exposed at defensive transitions and caught out on the counterattack.
There are various ways to gegenpress -- managers can ask players to shut down individual opponents, or block off passing lanes. But Klopp's version seems to place significant emphasis on getting bodies around the ball quickly, almost panicking the opponent in possession and forcing him to concede cheaply.
The interesting thing about Pochettino and Klopp's emphasis on pressing, however, is that this approach has rarely proved successful in the Premier League. As a general rule, English champions have concentrated on getting back behind the ball into a solid shape rather than engaging with the opposition high up the pitch. In more recent times, the obvious victim of pressing was Andre Villas-Boas, who watched his heavy tactics backfire spectacularly during his half-season with Chelsea. While he enjoyed more success initially at Tottenham, there were a couple of truly embarrassing defeats in his second season -- 6-0 against Manchester City and 5-0 against Liverpool -- which saw him sacked.
A more pertinent example, however, would be Arsenal in the 1997-98 campaign -- Arsene Wenger's first full season in charge. After switching from the 3-5-2 system Arsenal had used the previous season to a more traditional four-man defence, Wenger's second significant act was asking his players to press in advanced positions. Although it created high-tempo matches, Arsenal's players didn't appear comfortable with the approach in a defensive sense.
The crucial change came shortly before Christmas, when experienced members of Arsenal's squad -- particularly the defenders -- said they wanted Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit to sit deeper and offer more protection. With that approach, Arsenal put together a wonderful run and were eventually crowned champions.
It's difficult to highlight a Premier League title winner that properly pressed high up the pitch. Arsenal have broadly stuck to the template from Wenger's first season. Manchester United were generally a two-banks-of-four side under Sir Alex Ferguson, and while they became a more cultured possession side towards the end of his era, defensively they simply protected the back four keenly with the midfield. Chelsea have found success when defending deep and Manchester City pressed sporadically during their title victories, but not enough to make it a notable tactical feature.
Perhaps the arguable exceptions are the two underdogs. Blackburn Rovers' attackers shut down opponents very quickly during their title success of 1994-95, and while Leicester's default approach was to defend deep last season, they didn't receive enough credit for their spells of pressing high up the pitch, particularly in the season-defining 3-1 victory at Manchester City in February. Interestingly, those two sides have probably played the simplest football in terms of their possession play.
Why pressing has remained unsuccessful in England is the key question, especially considering the success of Klopp's Dortmund in the Bundesliga and Pep Guardiola's Barcelona in La Liga. It's surely linked to the physicality of English football, combined with traditionally poor playing surfaces and the lack of a winter break. The players are exhausted, so managers are reluctant to instruct them to sprint around relentlessly.
But it's also linked to something simpler: the relative lack of innovative coaching methods in English football. When Arsenal faced Guardiola's Barcelona for the first time in 2010, they looked utterly stunned by the sheer concept of pressing, unable to work the ball forward and unable to replicate their pressing after half-time. It felt like a revelation to Arsenal, even if Wenger had initially wanted Arsenal to play that way some 13 years previously.
What English football needed, then, was the introduction of some talented young foreign managers who know how to coach pressing and have fitness coaches who will get the players in the shape necessary to do so. Guardiola's impact will become clear later this season, but Pochettino and Klopp are the two men driving the Premier League's pressing revolution.
Saturday's game at White Hart Lane should be the first fascinating clash in the most tactically-intriguing Premier League season ever.