Klopp is staying on Rodgers's course

HE’S taking this Normal One thing a bit literally, isn’t he?

In fact Boring One might be more fitting after a trio of stodgy stalemates to kick off his reign at Liverpool.

What Jurgen Klopp needs is Liverpool to run into a defence that has absolutely forgotten the art of defending, loves to bomb forward aimlessly leaving holes galore and has a nasty habit of getting chinned on a regular basis.

Newcastle are out of town right now, but step forward Bournemouth, the ideal whipping boys to enable Klopp to celebrate a win.

Or they should be. The problem is that Liverpool post-Rodgers don’t look overly different from Liverpool pre-Rodgers, except that their press conferences are less sombre.

Rodgers signed off with five draws in his last six and Klopp has taken up the baton and refused to be swayed from the course his predecessor had charted for him.

It isn’t often you can say the draw is the value bet but at odds of not much less than 4-1, how can you turn down the Reds chalking up a ninth stalemate in their last ten?

Elsewhere, Tim Sherwood’s exit saved him from bowling up at the scene of the worst result of his brief Villa reign, a 6-1 humping at Southampton in May. If the board needed proof that it’s the players as much as the manager to blame for that club’s predicament, I’m all over the Soton/Soton half-time/full-time.