Jürgen Klopp said he would celebrate with a bus parade if Liverpool were awarded the two Premier League titles they lost by a point to Manchester City as he bid a tearful farewell to fans at a “Danke Jürgen” tribute night.
The former Liverpool manager returned to the city for a rousing send-off from 11,000 fans at the M&S Bank Arena, nine days after his final game at Anfield. Klopp revealed he has held “good talks” with his successor, Arne Slot, and broke down in tears as fans repeatedly chanted “I’m so glad that Jürgen is a red” after a montage was played of his Liverpool highlights. All proceeds from the event went to the Liverpool Foundation, the club’s charity of which Klopp is to be an ambassador.
During a lengthy Q&A session hosted by the comedian John Bishop and the LFC TV presenter Peter McDowall, Klopp lightheartedly mentioned he had been told not to discuss TNT Sports and 12.30pm kick-offs, referees, Manchester City, financial issues and VAR. Bishop, however, raised the subject of Liverpool being pipped to the title by a single point by City in 2018-19, when Klopp’s team finished the season on 97 points, and again in 2021-22.
“You leave this club having won the Premier League once,” Bishop said. “There could be a court decision that means you’ve won the Premier League three times…” Klopp interrupted: “If you organise a bus parade, I’m in! How long it takes I don’t care.”
The 115 charges against City for alleged breaches of Premier League regulations was one of the most requested questions by Liverpool fans on Bishop’s Instagram. City continue to deny the charges.
Another was whether Klopp felt he received sufficient financial backing from the club’s owners, Fenway Sports Group. He replied with a dig at Chelsea’s owners, and their decision to sack Mauricio Pochettino at the end of last season.
“Can you imagine LFC as the club with unlimited money?” said Klopp. “Imagine Kylian Mbappé came here. Imagine Bellingham came here, Haaland. It is not us, it just does not fit. We won what we won and we did it the Liverpool way. We had hard conversations and other clubs didn’t do that in the same time.
“We built two new stands, a new training ground, we bought Melwood back – the dumbest idea I ever heard was that we sold it in the first place. The owners do what owners do. Surprise! The owners want to earn money. Sorry to tell you that. It’s not like they earn money on a daily basis: they invest something and that’s how the whole world goes.
“We should be really happy that we have these owners and not guys who bought London clubs and other stuff. I wouldn’t have survived a year at Liverpool (with them in charge). ‘Great development but not good enough, sack him!’ A year later: ‘Sack him’. Then finally they play football where people think they might be back and they sack the manager anyway. People always think the grass is greener but we have owners who really feel responsible for the club and work really hard as well to be successful. I felt supported. We did it as good as we could have done and I’m fine with it.”
In what could also be viewed as a dig at Manchester United’s treatment of Jadon Sancho, Klopp said it was a manager’s responsibility to stand by a struggling player. He added: “If the whole world loses trust and faith in the player then the manager has to be the one behind the player. I cannot just buy into that ‘he’s useless’ stuff like other clubs did by the way. Buying a player for £80m and then sending him out on loan!”
