Jurgen Klopp to step down as Liverpool manager at end of the season after nine years at Anfield

26 January 2024, 10:48 | Updated: 26 January 2024, 11:24

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp is leaving the club at the end of the season.

Klopp is the longest-serving Premier League manager, having moved to Liverpool in 2015.

He is one of their most successful managers, having won all major trophies - the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup - during his nine-year spell at Anfield.

Liverpool's Premier League win in 2019/20 ended the club's 30-year wait to be crowned English champions again. He won the Champions League, Europe's top club football competition, a season earlier.

The 56-year-old German compared himself to a sports car running out of petrol in a video interview announcing his decision.

He said that he told the club about his decision in November. His contract was due to run until 2026.

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Klopp said: "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.

"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."

He added in a video interview: "Ending up as a manager of Liverpool FC is is a fairytale and a very difficult thing to to plan that it's impossible to plan and difficult to reach.

"But it's only possible if you are very busy and 100,000% committed to everything you do when you dedicate your whole life to it."

Klopp said: "I came here as a normal guy. I am still a normal guy. I just don't live a normal life for too long now.

"And I don't want to wait until I'm too old for having a normal life. And I need at least to give it a try at one point to see how it is."

Klopp added that it was the right moment to step down and "the right moment as well for the club because I can't do the job next year".

He said "I am like a proper sports car, not the best one but a pretty good one can still drive 160, 170, 180mph, but I'm the only one who sees the tank needles going down.

"The outside world doesn't see that, that's good. So you go as long as you have to go. But then you need a break. And that's exactly what I know I have to do. But nobody has to worry until the end of the season. I'm I know that I will be fine until then."

The news sparked an outpouring of sorrow and gratitude from Liverpool fans.

Club legend Jamie Carragher said: "This news was always going to be a body blow to the club whenever it came.

"I just thought it would be another few years away. What a manager, what a man, let’s go out with a bang Jurgen!"

Liverpool failed to win any trophies last year but this season are top of the league, in the final of the League Cup, and remain in the FA Cup and Europa League.

That means that in theory, Klopp could finish his last season with a quadruple.