Jürgen Klopp has stunned Liverpool supporters by announcing that he is to leave the club at the end of the season attributing the shock decision to him “running out of energy”.
The 56-year-old manager who has held the reins at Anfield since 2015 has defied expectations this season by taking his side to the top of the Premiership table, overtaking Arsenal after the festive break.
Klopp revealed that he told the owners in November of his intention to leave. “I can understand that it’s a shock for a lot of people in this moment, when you hear it for the first time, but obviously I can explain it – or at least try to explain it,” Klopp said.
“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. I have no problem now, obviously, I knew it already for longer that I will have to announce it at one point, but I am absolutely fine now. I know that I cannot do the job again and again and again and again.
“After the years we had together and after all the time we spent together and after all the things we went through together, the respect grew for you, the love grew for you and the least I owe you is the truth – and that is the truth.”
Klopp added: “I told the club already in November. I have to explain a little bit that maybe the job I do people see from the outside, I’m on the touchline and in training sessions and stuff like this, but the majority of all the things happen around these kind of things.
“That means a season starts and you plan pretty much the next season already.
“When we sat there together talking about potential signings, the next summer camp and can we go wherever the thought came up, ‘I am not sure I am here then anymore’ and I was surprised myself by that. I obviously start thinking about it.
“It didn’t start [then], but of course last season was kind of a super-difficult season and there were moments when at other clubs probably the decision would have been, ‘Come on, thank you very much for everything but probably we should split here, or end it here.’ That didn’t happen here, obviously.
“For me it was super, super, super-important that I can help to bring this team back onto the rails. It was all I was thinking about.
“When I realised pretty early that happened, it’s a really good team with massive potential and a super age group, super characters and all that, then I could start thinking about myself again and that was the outcome. It is not what I want to [do], it is just what I think is 100 per cent right.”
Klopp revolutionised the way Liverpool play when he took over from Brendan Rodgers in 2015 and quickly introduced his Gegenpress, ‘heavy metal football’ style of play.
He won the club a first Premier League title in 2020 and a sixth Champions League crown in 2019.
This season Liverpool are on course to win a second league title and currently occupy top spot, five points ahead of champions Manchester City.
