Richard Buxton: Liverpool sticking to their creed
Manager Klopp embodies the Liverpool way and they are on course for EPL glory
Ideology rather than innovation has often taken precedence in Liverpool's decision making.
On more than one occasion, they traded the prospect of ending an arduous EPL title drought for those who appeared to embody the romanticism of Anfield's fabled Boot Room narrative.
Trophies came and managers went but, crucially, the Holy Grail remained elusive. Belatedly, however, that methodology may now be set to reap the greatest reward of all.
A 3-1 win over Manchester United yesterday morning (Singapore time) nudged the Reds back to English football's summit and ever closer to a near three-decade wait for domestic success.
Juergen Klopp and Jose Mourinho's respective tenures are separated by only eight months yet are light years apart.
One continues to box clever, both tactically and in the transfer market, while his opposite number reverts to type and continually harks back to past glories.
Where the United manager was previously considered the scourge of Anfield, feared and loathed in equal measure, he has been downgraded to little more than a pantomime villain.
In another universe, Mourinho would embody everything wrong with Liverpool; painfully trading off a reputation rather than living for the moment.
Fate almost brought them together before Chelsea intervened and made a power play for the "Special One", over 14 years ago.
Both Mourinho and the Red Devils previously served as a pathfinder for what Merseyside had continually done wrong, sacrificing pedigree for potential and finding themselves no nearer to their modus operandi.
Now the pair epitomise everything that they actively seek to avoid.
A squad deficient in quality yet bloated in numbers dovetail with a manager only capable of operating under a siege mentality could easily be scripted from their rivals' own wilderness period. Liverpool, by contrast, have managed to strike a perfect balance under Klopp.
PERFECT FIT
This was hardly a changing of the guard - United had relinquished their sceptre a long time ago - but it underlined why the German remains a perfect fit for the current champions-elect.
Harnessing the febrile atmosphere which ensconces Liverpool both as a club and a city proved too great a challenge for several of his predecessors.
The weight of history was equally insurmountable for those that tried, and failed, to etch their name into immortality.
"There's no magic", was how the secret of the Boot Room dynasty was simplified but luck, rather than sorcery, will invariably play a part if they are to successfully topple Manchester City's behemoth.
Fortune has hardly been in short supply at both ends of the pitch so far.
Although Xherdan Shaqiri's brace in the United victory required the helping hand of deflections, Liverpool were never ever in danger of failing to turn a draw into a win.
The temptation to hark back to Anfield's heyday is often difficult to resist for many.
Seismic comparisons with the club's last truly swashbuckling team of the late 1980s has been a cross that the current side has been forced to bear during the early months of the campaign.
It might be time for them to finally be measured against their modern equivalents.
By the same midway point of their iconic "Invincibles" season in 2003/04, Arsenal had dropped double the amount of points as the three games that Liverpool have presently drawn.
Remaining unbeaten would not be beyond Klopp's players either.
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now