Jurgen Klopp has won it all with Liverpool and his legacy is enhanced by leaving on his terms and with his newly-rebuilt team on top. Adam Bate assesses his impact at Anfield following the news that Klopp will leave his post at the end of the season
Friday 26 January 2024 16:45, UK
There was a moment towards the end of Liverpool's press conference on Wednesday evening after having led his team into yet another cup final when Jurgen Klopp was asked about a banner that had appeared in the away end at Craven Cottage.
'Imagine being us', it read. The question of what it is like to be Klopp was put to him and he could not resist a smile before beginning a meandering reply about how the relentless schedule prevented him from enjoying it quite as much as the supporters.
Maybe there was a clue there as to the logic behind his decision to bring an end to his time as Liverpool manager in the summer. The grind of those fixture commitments, the incessant demand to carry the weight of all those hopes and dreams, must be draining.
But there will be much satisfaction too. Klopp has made many of those dreams come true. From lifting the Champions League trophy for the sixth time to ending that 30-year wait to be champions of England, this has been one of the seminal reigns in English football.
Liverpool were a great club before Klopp came and will be a great club after he has gone but the environment into which he arrived in 2015 should not be forgotten. This was a team that had just finished eighth in the Premier League and was down in 10th that October.
The first Premier League goal of the Klopp era was scored by Christian Benteke. Sadio Mane scored for Southampton in that game. This was the Liverpool of Skrtel and Sakho, of Mignolet and Moreno. But the mood at Anfield changed long before the personnel.
There had been a lingering suspicion that it needed a knowledge of this special club to understand its nuances. The boot-room culture endured and Klopp was an outsider but he grasped it intuitively, showing the locals the Liverpool that they wanted to be.
He announced himself as the 'Normal One' but what followed was anything but normal. Bonds were forged quickly, a new brand of heavy-metal football embraced. A dramatic win over Borussia Dortmund was a sign of the emotional European nights to come.
Supporters will say you had to be there. This reporter was lucky enough to be at Anfield on the night of that intoxicating 4-0 win over Lionel Messi's Barcelona when Liverpool overcame a three-goal deficit, a comeback that felt both impossible and inevitable.
If that was the apotheosis of the incredible, it was one example among many. Copious late goals, the periods when Liverpool looked like a force of nature, utterly irresistible. Alisson Becker's headed winner against West Brom. Just about every goal by Divock Origi.
Klopp rode the emotions but the caricature belied a thoughtful figure and there was science as well as art behind Liverpool's re-emergence as a real force. Savvy recruitment underpinned it. All those world-class players for £30m a pop proves that much.
But it was the man-management too. Roberto Firmino and Jordan Henderson, underwhelmed and underwhelming, predated him, after all. James Milner was approaching 30 when Klopp walked into his life and he promptly reinvented himself once more.
Klopp squeezed more from less, taking on the City juggernaut and occasionally stopping them in their tracks. The misfortunate to be up against one of the greatest sides that English football has ever seen, that relentless Pep Guardiola machine, provides the context.
Having been so good for so long, there is a slight frustration that Klopp's reign has not yet yielded more than the six trophies that put him level with Bill Shankly for major honours, nevertheless. And even 97 points were not enough to win one Premier League title.
Great rivalries make both parties better and if there is regret about how it has impacted the contents of the trophy cabinet, there can be no doubt it raised standards. Klopp became a better coach, adding subtlety to his tactical arsenal, making Guardiola better too.
When things waned, once during the pandemic and then again last winter, sparking talk of shelf lives and attempts to draw parallels with how it unravelled for him at Dortmund, Klopp's Liverpool came again. This announcement comes with them top of the table.
"It is better to leave slightly early than too late," he says. And this now feels like the former. Another Liverpool side is emerging. The rebuild had looked likely to be complex for periods of last season but those fears have been allayed. Supporters can see a way.
Last February, over halfway into the Premier League season, they were adrift in midtable and about to be undone in Europe at home to Real Madrid. For that team, it felt like an ending. For their manager, he could not be content to leave in those circumstances.
Mane was gone. Roberto Firmino was viewed as irreplaceable. And yet Liverpool's potency now appears unaffected even in the absence of Mohamed Salah. A new trident of Diogo Jota, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez - all of peak age - is showing real promise.
The tantalising prospect of Klopp constructing a second great Liverpool side, with Dominik Szoboszlai bringing fresh energy and Trent Alexander-Arnold embracing a new role, is beginning to take shape. If he could sign off with a second title, it would be confirmed.
That is the desirable ending, of course, but it is not a necessity. His legacy is already assured and, into his ninth year in the role, he is sure to leave everyone wanting more. Imagine being us? For Liverpool's supporters, it has been a reality with Jurgen Klopp.
