Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp shocked the football world on Friday by announcing he will leave the club at the end of the season because he is “running out of energy”. Klopp, who has restored Liverpool to one of European football’s powerhouses since taking over at Anfield in 2015, said the decision was taken after realising his “resources are not endless”.
The 56-year-old plans to take at least a year’s sabbatical from management come May and promised to Liverpool fans that he will never coach another English club. “I can understand that it’s a shock for a lot of people in this moment, when you hear it for the first time,” Klopp told Liverpool’s website.
“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.”
Klopp led Liverpool to their first league title for 30 years in 2020 and to Champions League glory in 2019 among seven trophies during his time at Anfield. And he could add a few more in the coming months as he aims to go out on a high. Liverpool are five points clear at the top of the Premier League, face Chelsea in the League Cup final next month and are still involved in the FA Cup and Europa League.
Klopp said he had taken the decision in November when discussions with the club about potential signings for next season began. After years of battling with Manchester City at the top of the Premier League and reaching the later stages of the Champions League, Liverpool struggled to match their usual standards under Klopp in the 2022/23 season.
They finished fifth in the Premier League and crashed out of the Champions League at the last 16 after being thrashed 5-2 by Real Madrid at Anfield. But Klopp said it was vital for him to not leave on that sour note and a rejuvenated squad is in contention for four trophies in what remains of his reign.
“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,” said Klopp on Liverpool’s return to form this season. “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 percent right.”
Klopp has spoken in the past of his desire to manage the German national team, but he hinted that those ambitions will be put on hold until he is refreshed. “Whatever will happen in the future I don’t know now but no club, no country for the next year. No other English club ever, I can promise that,” he added.
Klopp’s backroom staff will also leave at the end of the season with assistant Pep Lijnders keen to pursue his own managerial career. The US-based Fenway Sports Group (FSG), who own Liverpool, paid tribute to Klopp and said work will begin immediately on looking for his successor.
Xabi Alonso, the Spanish former Liverpool player who has guided Bayer Leverkusen to the top of the Bundesliga this season as coach, is the bookmakers’ favourite. Brighton boss Roberto De Zerbi is also in the running after leading the Seagulls into Europe this season for the first time in the club’s history with an attractive brand of football.
“I would like to state our profound appreciation for Jurgen,” said FSG president Mike Gordon. “It goes without saying that we will be hugely saddened to lose not just a manager of such calibre, but a person and leader for whom we have enormous respect, gratitude and affection. At the same time, we fully respect his wishes and the reasons why he has decided the current season will be his last at Liverpool.”
Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher said on X, formerly Twitter: “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!”