Jurgen Klopp press conference LIVE: Liverpool manager addresses shock departure

Since taking over as Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp added a Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup and Champions League to their trophy cabinet as well as a Uefa Super Cup and an inaugural Club World Cup.

The Reds have reached the Carabao Cup final this season and are still competing for the Premier League, Europa League and FA Cup so there is a strong chance the German can still add to that tally.

If he can lead the side to success in the Europa League, he’ll have won every available trophy as manager of Liverpool.

Erik ten Hag: “It’s no good for the Premier League. He built the club, he brought the club back where they belong. He has done an amazing job in Liverpool.”

On Klopp saying fatigue was a factor: “I can understand that. Nine years is a long time. The Premier League is very intense, in combination with European football, and nine years is a long period. I can understand that he is running out of energy.”

Here is a detailed breakdown of the odds around Liverpool’s next manager, with Xabi Alonso the bookies’ favourite as it stands:

Marco Silva on Klopp’s impending exit: “A big surprise for all of us. Almost eight years and 500 games, and it’s been a big success. A really nice guy and I wish him all the best.”

Silva coached Everton in their Merseyside derbies against Liverpool and Klopp from the start of the 2018/19 season until midway through the next term.

The Spaniard is currently the head coach of Fulham, whom Liverpool edged out in the Carabao Cup semi-finals this month. A second-leg draw this week carried the Reds past Fulham and into next month’s final, where Chelsea await – in a rematch of the 2022 showpiece game.

Sam Wallace of The Telegraph has reported: “Liverpool have no successor lined up for Jürgen Klopp - although there are [obvious] contenders.

“Process will be run from now, [including] appointing new sporting director.

“- [There was] no ‘good time’ to make announcement.

“- Klopp believes ‘2.0’ team leaves strong legacy.”

More from Miguel Delaney:

“Who will now come in?

“This is the most profound effect of Klopp’s resignation. He leaves a huge vacuum, that was filled by much more than that outsized personality. The modern game, already dispiritingly narrow at the very top end, has for the moment lost a substantial force. A club now needs a revenue of at least £400m to even compete and the few that can manage that then need someone mercurial to turn that money into the silver of trophies. Klopp was that.

“That does lead into more substantial immediate questions. What will he do this season?”

Full article:

Here is our Chief Football Writer, Miguel Delaney, on Klopp’s announcement today...

“It is rare in the modern game that news completely stuns the football world but that’s exactly what happened with Jurgen Klopp’s resignation. There was shock among major European managers and players.

“It is, with an odd sense of appropriateness, the modern equivalent of Bill Shankly retiring in 1974. That can’t quite feature the incredible clips of a successor to Tony Wilson literally informing Liverpool fans on the street that their patriarch had left. They will have no doubt checked their smartphones, given everyone in the Premier League was sharing the news with exclamation marks and emojis within seconds.

“Unlike Shankly, too, many of the consequences are immediately apparent. This is a very different and more financially defined game.

“European football has, for the time being, lost the greatest counterweight to the continent’s current champions and most dominant team. Klopp is not just the only manager to have won Liverpool a title since their glory era. He is the only manager to have got close to Manchester City’s levels in England. His Liverpool are the only other team to get past 90 points since Pep Guardiola started winning titles and he did it three times.”

Full article:

Xabi Alonso, the current favourite to succeed Klopp at Anfield, has just said at a Bayer Leverkusen press conference:

“Speculation is normal, my focus is here on Bayer Leverkusen.

“I am very happy at Leverkusen with my players at the moment.

“Big surprise in Liverpool, of course. For what Jurgen did in Liverpool, I have great respect and admiration.”

Spaniard Alonso, 42, played in the Liverpool midfield from 2004 until 2009.

It is worth saying, while considering the tweet below, that Klopp said earlier: “If you ask me, ‘Will you ever work as a manager again?’ I would say now, ‘No,’ but I don’t know obviously how that will feel, because I never had the situation.

“What I know definitely: I will never, ever manage a different club in England than Liverpool, 100 per cent. That’s not possible. My love for this club, my respect for the people is too big. I couldn’t. I couldn’t for a second think about it. There’s no chance.

“This is part of my life, we are part of the family, we feel home here. There’s no chance to do that. But all the rest, will I ever work again? Of course, I know myself, I cannot just sit around. I will find something else maybe to do. But I will not manage a club or a country at least for a year, that’s not possible, I cannot do that and I don’t want to.”