Even if Liverpool finish in the bottom half, Klopp must stay

I KNOW what it’s like, Liverpool. Blackburn won the Premier League in 1994-95, then we finished seventh in 1995-96. You go from being the best in the country to feeling like nothing is going your way. You have team meetings in which you discuss your demise. You read reports in newspapers about how your title defence is as dead as a dodo. The manager is put under pressure and some supporters call for his head. That is happening to Jurgen Klopp now, too, which is downright ludicrous. Liverpool could finish in the bottom half of the Premier League this season and Klopp should keep his job. He’s earned that right as the man who turned that club into the champions of England after 30 long years. There needs to be some understanding. Blackburn had mitigating factors 25 years ago — namely Kenny Dalglish resigning as manager to move into the boardroom. Liverpool supporters will look back years from now and see that there were mitigating factors behind their collapse, too. This will go down as the season when injuries killed them, when their defence was so depleted that midfielders had to fill in at the back. Now Jordan Henderson is the latest to pick up a problem. It never rains but it pours when things are going wrong at a football club. All is not lost this season for Klopp’s side, however. They still have the Champions League. Liverpool performed well in their 2-0 win against RB Leipzig and they’ll hope the second leg is a formality. Any talk of Klopp leaving is silly and unfair.