Liverpool FC has announced that their current manager Jürgen Klopp will leave the club at the end of the season.
In a bombshell news on Friday, the club revealed that the German has decided he would not continue with the Premier League giants beyond the current season.
In a video interview released by the club on X, Klopp revealed the reason he was eager to confirm his decision at this stage of the season, stating that there was a need for clarity at the earliest opportunity to create the conditions for an orderly transition to take place in due course.
Speaking to Liverpool’s official website, the 56-year-old said: “I can understand that it’s a shock for a lot of people at this moment when you hear it for the first time, but obviously I can explain it – or at least try to explain it.
What Klopp said
“I love absolutely everything about this club,” Klopp said.
“I love everything about the city, I love everything about our supporters, I love the team, I love the staff. I love everything. But that I still take this decision shows you that I am convinced it is the one I have to take.
“It is that I am, how can I say it, running out of energy. I have no problem now, obviously, I knew it already for longer that I would have to announce it at one point, but I am absolutely fine now. I know that I cannot do the job again and again and again and again.
“After the years we had together and after all the time we spent together and after all the things we went through together, the respect grew for you, the love grew for you and the least I owe you is the truth – and that is the truth.”
Klopp also revealed that he had informed Liverpool of his decision in November.
Klopp added: “I told the club already in November. I have to explain a little bit that maybe the job I do people see from the outside, I’m on the touchline and in training sessions and stuff like this, but the majority of all the things happen around these kind of things. That means a season starts and you plan pretty much the next season already.
“When we sat there together talking about potential signings, the next summer camp and can we go wherever, the thought came up, ‘I am not sure I am here then anymore’ and I was surprised myself by that. I obviously start thinking about it.
“It didn’t start [then], but of course last season was kind of a super-difficult season and there were moments when at other clubs probably the decision would have been, ‘Come on, thank you very much for everything but probably we should split here, or end it here.’ That didn’t happen here, obviously.
“For me it was super, super, super-important that I can help to bring this team back onto the rails. It was all I was thinking about. When I realised pretty early that happened, it’s a really good team with massive potential and a super age group, super characters and all that, then I could start thinking about myself again and that was the outcome. It is not what I want to [do], it is just what I think is 100 per cent right.”
A message to Liverpool supporters from Jürgen Klopp. pic.twitter.com/l7rtmxgOzt
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) January 26, 2024
Meanwhile, Klopp isn’t the only one among the coaching staff leaving at the end of the season, with his coaching assistants Pepijn Lijnders and Peter Krawietz, as well as elite development coach Vitor Matos also vacating their positions at the end of the season.
Klopp joined Liverpool in 2015 and has guided the Reds to ten finals in those years. He has already booked a place in the EFL Cup final this February and will be desperate to end his Anfield tenure with as many trophies as possible, with Liverpool sitting top of the Premier League and still in the Europa League and FA CUP.
He said urged the fans and club not to focus on his departure yet, but to focus on the remaining games of the season, in order to finish strongly.
“We will have a moment, maybe the last matchday here or somewhere else – I mean in other countries or other competitions. There’s enough time to do these kinds of things. Let’s now really go for it. The outside world want to use this decision, laugh about it, want to disturb us.
“We are Liverpool, we went through harder things together. And you went through harder things before me. Let’s make a strength of it. That would be really cool. Let’s squeeze everything out of this season and have another thing to smile about when we look back in the future.”
