Klopp confirms Liverpool exit
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp shocked the football world last Friday (Jan 26) by announcing he will leave the club at the end of the season because he is “running out of energy”.
Klopp, who has restored Liverpool to one of European football’s powerhouses since taking over at Anfield in 2015, said the decision was taken after realising his “resources are not endless”.
“I can understand that it’s a shock for a lot of people in this moment, when you hear it for the first time,” Klopp said in an interview on Liverpool’s website.
“I love absolutely everything about this club, 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. It is not what I want to do, it is just what I think is 100 percent right.”
Klopp led Liverpool to their first league title for 30 years in 2020 and to Champions League glory in 2019 among seven trophies during his time at Anfield.
He could add a few more in the coming months as he aims to go out on a high.
Liverpool are five points clear at the top of the Premier League, face Chelsea in the League Cup final next month and are still involved in the FA Cup and Europa League.
Klopp said he had taken the decision in November when discussions with the club about potential signings for next season began.
The 56-year-old has spoken in the past of his desire to manage the German national team, but he hinted that those ambitions will be put on hold as he plans to take at least a year’s sabbatical from management come May.
“Whatever will happen in the future I don’t know now but no club, no country for the next year. No other English club ever, I can promise that,” he added.
The US-based Fenway Sports Group (FSG), who own Liverpool, paid tribute to Klopp and said work will begin immediately on looking for his successor.
Xabi Alonso, the Spanish former Liverpool player who has guided Bayer Leverkusen to the top of the Bundesliga this season as coach, is the bookmakers’ favourite although Brighton boss Roberto De Zerbi is also in the running.
“It goes without saying that we will be hugely saddened to lose not just a manager of such calibre, but a person and leader for whom we have enormous respect, gratitude and affection,” said FSG president Mike Gordon.