Liverpool FC Forum

What a journey it has been with Klopp. Since he arrived there was a buzz around the fan base. I had a good feeling then that Klopp will get us back to the big time.

Landing the big one, UCL glory and creating a side that became feared globally. Becoming soo close to immortality in 2022.

Creating a devasting attack force in Mane,Salah, Firmino that even gave Pep nightmares.

I will miss him and hope he'll enjoy his break away from footy.

As many will reiterate, Klopp could've won a lot more, we should've atleast had another UCL, the 2022 final was there for the taking. Klopp is a club legend and will be missed, it will be difficult to fill his boots.

As for this season, from promising to demoralising. From looking like a team that has gradually gelled to looking disjointed.

Aiming for 4 trophies but only left with cardboa. Many say at the start of the season we would take what we have now. However, expectations change when you have a great opportunity to achieve a higher goal.

We've had issues with new midfield, injuries, players out of sync. For me, main issue has been finishing. The amount of possession and chances created has been crazy but nothing to show for when required. That has been our downfall this season. A clinical forward uptop could've been the difference to glory and we potentially be 5 points clear at top.
Conceeding first didn't help at all, sure we conceeding first in like 20 odd games or so. To begin with it the comebacks showed great resilience and character. But eventually it was going to bite us.

Downfall began when we lost the FA cup tie against United, some could even say United derailed our season.....

Anyhow, back to UCL next season and hopefully a positive first season for Slot, alot of work to be done.

YNWA

How to sum up Klopp? 'You bring the noise'.

Klopp brought us football like we hadn't seen for 30 years.
Attacking wing backs, Mo, Mane and Bobby up front, Hendo, Fab and Gini and VVD and Ali majestic at the back.Team spirit, lads playing out of their socks for eachother and passionate to win the trophies the fans dreamed of.
And a manager bigger than them all, who ran the club, kept ego's in check and became the players father.

But all things come to an end, the team passed it's peak, we held on to players longer than we should, we brought in some unsuited players because they were either cheaper or because Jurgen wanted them. We lost the buzz and the older players were worn out. Jurgen didn't have the tools nor the energy to create another miracle. 

The unprecedented summer clear out should have doomed us to 10th place this season.

Player  New Club Fee
Fabinho Al-Ittihad £40.2m
Jordan Henderson Al-Ettifaq £12.0m
Roberto Firmino Al-Ahli Free transfer
Naby Keita Werder Bremen Free transfer
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain  Released End of contract
James Milner Brighton Free transfer

The Reds moved swiftly, spending £95 million on Mac Allister and Szoboszlai from Brighton and RB Leipzig. After failing to land Caicedo and Lavia, Liverpool brought 30-year-old Wataru Endo from Stuttgart, and Gravenberch ona deadline day from Bayern Munich for£34 million.

Miraculously the new lads hit the ground running and we were rarely out of the top 4. Long term injuries added to the lack of depth in the squad and fatigue:  Thiago, Matip, Robbo, Trent, Jota and Ali.

Klopp had no choice but to play a small core squad and whilst the manager, club and fans hoped that the adrenaline caused by the news Klopp would leave us at the end of the season would keep us in contention for 4 trophies, it simply wasn't to be, the team burnt out and fizzled.

You can point to a few reasons, all of which are no doubt true. But that's football.
Jealous fans now laugh at Jurgen but EVERY football club and fan would have died for the chance for Klopp to manage their own side.
Even United fans frequently lamented how good Klopp was and how poor their many managers have been in comparison. 

I love Klopp. He recreated the Paisley era of confidence and expectation. I flew from Singapore to Madrid for the CL final, then straight back. I'd do it again. In fact I'd walk.

To put the enormity of the job into perspective, in the 9 years Klopp has been at LFC,  Villa have had 8 managers, Spurs 8, Newcastle 8, Man United 6, Arsenal 4, Man City 2. Chaos, utter chaos. We missed all that upheaval. We were happy.

God bless you Jurgen, you join the greats. Shanks, Bob, Fagan, Kenny, Rafa and Jurgen.

The King is dead, long live the King.

Interview with Paul Machin from Redmentv and Klopp.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJB59dJR0Rs

Interview with The Anfield Wrap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSYGbw6U2as

Happy with all he has done but not happy about the instability that will happen when him and every one of his staff leaves our beloved club. He cannot claim to have left the team in good shape for the next manager with all the staff turnover that will happen this summer. Him leaving because his is “tired” is fair enough but every single member of his staff leaving whether they have another job or not is not, that smells like revenge. He says he is retiring because he truly loves the club and doesn’t have the energy it will take to run it, yet he is ok with every single one of his staff leaving.

The owners are not the club, the fans are the club! Rafa knew that.

What a magnificent tribute- just WOW!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xeu00RJx9ds

Best 5 mins you will ever spend on Youtube,

Gutted he's going. For me, it's like when King Kenny left us in the early 1990s.

Klopp was a natural fit for us. He understood the club, the fans and the city. And we understood him.

A huge void to fill, with Klopp's team leaving too. I can't help but suspect something has happened behind the scenes.

But thanks for all your hard work boss. The league, the champions league and the domestic cups. You've been immense.

Let's hope he returns one day.

Klopp is deffo an LFC all time great right up there with the Shankly’s, Paisley’s, Dalglish’s, Watson’s etc of this world.
What we’ve always understood at this club is it’s about what you do with the cards you are dealt, that’s why figures like Bill Shankly and Billy Liddell are revered like demi-gods despite having relatively modest medal haul’s certainly compared to a duo like say Alex Ferguson and Ryan Giggs.
Klopp inherited a team that hadn’t won the title in 30 years and had qualified for the CL once in the previous 6 years. Despite being up against the richest most powerful club to ever exist in the entire 150 year history of the pro game and armed only with a mid table nett spend the next 6 years saw us reach 3 CL finals win the title with a record points hall and but for a tiny bit of luck could easily be sitting here on 3 league titles and 3 CL’s.

Imo it's clear it's the owners that made Klopp leave in the end. Zero support and cheap on the transfer end ending up with a 30 year old from Bundesliga.
The team spent NOTHING in January when the team was desperate for reinforcements,
Now the owners gets the "head coach" they want so they get more power.

Penguins » Sat May 25, 2024 4:28 pm wrote:Imo it's clear it's the owners that made Klopp leave in the end. Zero support and cheap on the transfer end ending up with a 30 year old from Bundesliga.
The team spent NOTHING in January when the team was desperate for reinforcements,
Now the owners gets the "head coach" they want so they get more power.

No team spent anything last January and the owners have all the power anyway, because they are owners   

On a side note I read that Pep was offered the Liverpool job three times and he turned it down. He said that he had been at Liverpool 9 years and needed something new. Also said he believed the players needed a new direction as well.

Jürgen Klopp returning to football as Red Bull’s ‘head of global soccer’

The Guardian Wed 9 Oct 2024 08.34 BST

The former Liverpool and Dortmund manager Jürgen Klopp is back in the game after being appointed as the new head of global soccer at Red Bull.

“After almost 25 years on the sideline, I could not be more excited to get involved in a project like this,” said Klopp, who begins the role on 1 January 2025. “The role may have changed but my passion for football and the people who make the game what it is has not.”

Reports in Germany suggest his deal with the multi-club organisation, funded by the drinks manufacturer, has a get-out clause that allows him to apply for the German national-team job once Julian Nagelsmann steps down. Nagelsmann penned an extension to his deal before Euro 2024 and is expected to lead the team to the 2026 World Cup.

Klopp departed Liverpool at the end of the 2023-24 season, after almost eight years on Merseyside. He has remained a visible presence on social media, and was seen at the Paris Paralympics, supporting his close friend New Zealand’s Wojtek Czyz, a badminton player.

At Red Bull, he will be fulfilling what appears a similar function to that Michael Edwards, who worked alongside Klopp at Liverpool as sporting director, now fulfils. Liverpool’s FSG owners have set on a pathway to multi-club ownership.

His appointment is due to be unveiled at a press conference in mid-January 2025, his starting date on New Year’s Day, with a Red Bull statement saying: “He will not be involved in day-to-day operations but will oversee a group of clubs that bring the kind of intensity that became his own calling card as a coach.”

In July 2022, after a friendly between Liverpool and RB Salzburg, Klopp praised the organisation, saying: “What Red Bull is doing is a really interesting project, I have to say … They kind of change every year, they sell players but still a good team. It’s really interesting what they are doing. The football philosophy is not too far away from ours as well.”

The Red Bull sporting organisation includes RB Leipzig in the Bundesliga, New York Red Bulls in MLS, and its interests include a minority share in and shirt sponsorship for Leeds United, as well as many other ventures in sport, including their seven-time world championship-winning Formula One team.

One of the founders of the Red Bull philosophy is Ralf Rangnick, who later became Manchester United manager, with whom Klopp shared a high-pressing approach. The current Austria coach, who became Red Bull head of sport and development after being sporting director at both Salzburg and Leipzig, is a confidante and occasional mentor to Klopp.

After spending seven years at Mainz, another seven at Borussia Dortmund and then the full-throttle spell at Liverpool that brought a Champions League and a Premier League title to Anfield among other trophies, Klopp stated this will be a change in pace for his career: “I see my role primarily as a mentor for the coaches and management of the Red Bull clubs but ultimately I am one part of an organisation that is unique, innovative and forward looking.”

Red Bull’s statement added: “He will not be involved in the clubs’ day-to-day operations, but will provide strategic vision, supporting individual sporting directors in advancing the Red Bull philosophy.”

Salzburg’s current head coach is Pepijn Ljinders, the Dutchman who was Klopp’s assistant from 2018 to 2024. Their season has begun disappointingly, with two heavy defeats in the Champions League group stage, and a 5-0 beating from Sturm Graz at the weekend. Leipzig, coached by another former Dortmund coach in Marco Rose, are second place in this season’s Bundesliga. The New York branch is coached by Sandro Schwarz, another German.

BVB fans are REALLY not happy with this. They consider RB as a plastic manufactured franchise.
Money talks.

Money always has talked and always will. Klopp received £17 million a year, don't tell me the lad needs to work, it's just greed. He'll be pulling in the sponsorship as we speak..

Can't say i'm surprised, given the fella's only in his mid 50's he was always way too young to retire, must admit initially i was a bit surprised he'd gone down the corporate club route but rather than greed i suspect the real reason he's taken the job with RB is because as head of football he's in an ideal position to protect/mentor/help Pep who is clearly struggling to find his feet as a manager. Dont forget when Pep was a coach with us he left to manage a dutch team but ended up getting sacked. He's already been f**ked off from one job if he loses this one he's gonna find it tough to get another, a half decent one anyway.
Jurgen and Pep ended up like brothers at our place and i bet Jurgen is desperate to see him do well, Jurgen was probably planning to put his feet up for a couple of years and then take the German job but seeing his little bro struggling he's clearly decided to dust off the arl hoodie and baseball cap and see what he can do for him.
No way does Jurgen sack Pep, Jurgen would walk first and i cant see RB falling out with Jurgen over one struggling team in their franchise so by throwing his hat into the ring Jurgen is giving Pep an unbelievable opportunity to learn his trade without constantly looking over his shoulder and worrying about the next result

Good post Yakka.