I did not think Liverpool would win the title again – but the genius Klopp has proved me wrong

Jurgen Klopp arrived at Anfield saying he wanted to turn doubters into believers. I was one of those who had given up hope of Liverpool winning the Premier League. It was shortly after my last meaningful title bid in 2009 I started to lose my faith. The 2010 season was awful. Xabi Alonso had been sold to Real Madrid, Rafa Benitez’s team were unravelling and the club were braced for another period of reconstruction.

Reluctantly, I faced up to the disheartening conclusion a championship victory parade would never happen.

As a professional, you never completely abandon those dreams, especially given the size and potential of the club I represented. Throughout the 2000s we headed into every pre-season adamant a couple more signings might be the difference. On a few occasions they nearly were.

But even when looking back upon my career, the times we came closest – in 2002 under Gerard Houllier and 2009 under Benitez – Arsenal and Manchester United were stronger. Within 12 months of finishing second we went backwards and were headhunting another manager.

Between 1990 and 2019, Liverpool were worthy of the description title challengers seven times. I am being generous. In reality, few were sustained bids.

My defeatism really kicked in after 2014, a year after I left, when Brendan Rodgers’s side narrowly missed out in heartbreaking circumstances. Luis Suarez moved on and Steven Gerrard’s career was coming to its end.

For over a decade Gerrard was fundamental to the club’s success, the one player so good he made me think anything was possible. I was not sure how Liverpool would find anyone of his talent and stature so committed to the Anfield cause.

Once outside the Kop bubble, the more I studied the broader landscape in English football, the more I realised the best Liverpool sides I played in punched above our weight, especially when defying the economic power of Manchester United, Chelsea, Barcelona and Real Madrid to win the Champions League in 2005. Over a 38-game domestic season, our weaknesses were exposed.

No matter who the manager, and as much as I considered Fenway Sports Group good owners, I could not see how it was possible to change that without a Roman Abramovich or Sheikh Mansourstyle

Now as a Liverpool title winner, Klopp stands tall in the ultimate VIP suite alongside Shankly

investment. That feeling grew after Manchester City lured Pep Guardiola to England.

Klopp demonstrated his class in the Bundesliga. Challenging as that was, he could focus all his attention on finishing above one club, Bayern Munich. There were five formidable obstacles in the way when he moved to England. I said so in my first Telegraph Sport column in 2017. “I am not convinced Jurgen Klopp will ever be able to bring it back to Anfield,” I wrote.

“It is no longer appropriate to evaluate the success of a Liverpool manager based on whether he wins the league. The competition is too strong to set the bar so high.”

It gives me the greatest pleasure to admit these words look misjudged today. In my defence, aside from the most optimistic fans judging with heart above head, no one took me to task for the remarks at the time. Outside Anfield, there was only one high-profile figure in the game who tried to convince me Klopp could bring the title to Anfield. I should have listened to Sir Alex Ferguson.

I will never forget meeting Ferguson when I played in Michael Carrick’s testimonial in June 2017. “You’ve got yourself a manager, there,” Fergie told me. It was the look he gave me that was most revealing, as he explained how impressed he had been with Klopp during Champions League coaching seminars. Klopp attended while the Borussia Dortmund coach to hear from the most esteemed football minds. He felt, and exhibited, no inferiority complex, and Ferguson intuitively knew he was perfect for Liverpool.

There are countless reasons Klopp has been so transformative. His greatest mind trick is making the football world forget how far behind the club were. Between 2010 and 2016, Liverpool’s finishing positions were 7th, 6th, 8th, 7th, 2nd, 6th and 8th. Rodgers’s title bid was an anomaly. Liverpool were no longer a Champions League side. They were a Europa League qualifier.

The last three Liverpool managers had come from Swansea, Fulham and the legends suite, and star players such as Alonso, Javier Mascherano, Fernando Torres, Suarez and Raheem Sterling saw Anfield as a stepping stone.

For the first time since 1998, a Liverpool manager had to build a team without Gerrard’s world-class talent. The club were at a crossroads, the enthusiasm which greeted Klopp partly through gratitude that such an esteemed name could still be seduced by the romance of The Kop.

In the 111 games previous to my downbeat prediction of prolonged title disappointment, Liverpool had kept just 37 clean sheets. I was part of a defence that kept 33 in a season, and we still finished second.

Anyone who thinks a Liverpool title in 2020 was plausible when Klopp joined should put a bet on Arsenal winning the Premier League in 2025. Take a long, hard look at the challenge facing Mikel Arteta today and it is the closest you will get to what Klopp walked into at Anfield – a huge club failing to match up to their history.

Klopp has managed to achieve what to me seemed inconceivable by making Anfield a go-to destination because of the promise of titles rather than recent deliveries of them. Without Klopp, would Virgil van Dijk choose Liverpool over Manchester City? He sold the club to him, as he did to Alisson Becker.

I am sick of hearing managers being excused for poor performance because “signings did not work”. Klopp makes them work. When Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah arrived, they were good players. Today, they are world-class. That is Klopp’s impact as a coach. That is why Liverpool made it to the next level, and why the current generation have escaped the frustrations Gerrard and I went through as we literally saw over 100 new team-mates come and go.

When Liverpool lost the League Cup and Europa League finals in 2016, my Anfield experiences informed me it was a missed opportunity that would not easily come again.

“This is just the start,” we all said after winning the Uefa Cup in 2001 and Champions League in 2005, hoping a new era was born. It was not. It was the pinnacle of Houllier and Benitez’s reigns. When they left, it angered me some called them a failure for not winning the Premier League.

Comparisons with the legends of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties were inescapable, but irrelevant and unfair. That is why even though I keep hearing and reading about this being Liverpool’s 19th title, with the greatest respect to our history I am happy to describe it as the first Premier League one.

Parallels with the last Liverpool championship in 1990 are wrong. The truest reference points are pioneering feats such as Bill Shankly winning the club’s first FA Cup in 1965, and Bob Paisley doing likewise with the European Cup in 1977.

Winning the Premier League means Klopp has achieved what no other Liverpool coach has, in overcoming the daunting modern challenges his seven most recent predecessors could not. I thought the best Klopp could do was build a side who could be fairly judged against those I played in under Houllier and Benitez.

I am ecstatic to be wrong. As a Liverpool title winner, Klopp now stands tall in the ultimate VIP suite alongside Kenny Dalglish, Joe Fagan, Paisley and Shankly.