Liverpool Football Club have confirmed that Jurgen Klopp will step down as manager at the end of the season, after spending eight and a half years at the club.
Klopp has explained the reasoning behind his shocking and unexpected decision to depart from his duties at the club- but wants a “business as usual approach” from everyone at the club until his departure.
The German head coach joined Liverpool in 2015 and has won the Premier League, Champions League FA Cup and League Cup with the Merseyside club.
Liverpool are still in contention for four trophies this season and it will be Jurgen Klopp’s last chance to deliver another successful chapter in the club’s history.
Klopp said regarding his dramatic announcement: “Yes, I have to. I will leave the club at the end of the season. I can understand that that’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.
“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. That’s it, pretty much.”
Klopp’s assistant managers Pepijn Lijnders and Peter Krawietz, as well as elite development coach Vitor Matos, will also leave at the end of the season. Liverpool said in a statement that Lijnders is “keen to pursue his own career in management”.
“I told the club already in November,” Klopp added. “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.”