Gary Neville slams fanfare surrounding new Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp: 'He has yet to play a football match in England, never mind win one'
Neville believes the mentality at Liverpool needs to change to show Klopp is lucky to have them, not the other way around
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Your support makes all the difference.Gary Neville has spoken out over the fanfare that has surrounded Liverpool’s appointment of Jürgen Klopp and believes that “giddiness” shown over his arrival should not be happening before he has taken charge of a single game.
Klopp will take charge of his first match as Liverpool manager when the Reds face Tottenham at White Hart Lane in Saturday’s lunchtime kick-off, but Neville believes that the mentality at the club is completely wrong and needs to be reversed to that Klopp feels he is lucky to have Liverpool – not the other way around.
When Brendan Rodgers was appointed in 2012 he was hailed as one of the leading young managers of the next generation, and while Neville admits that Klopp is cut from the same cloth – albeit with more success to his name in the form of two Bundesliga titles and a Champions League final appearance – he has urged Liverpool fans not to get ahead of themselves.
“I’m not sure whether Klopp reads our media but I imagine he would be quite uncomfortable seeing the eulogies,” Neville writes in his column for the Telegraph. “There’s been quite a bit of fawning when he has yet to play a football match in England, never mind win one.
“Liverpool need to get their belief and confidence back, and feel – actually, this guy is being given a responsibility, and it’s a privilege. It is almost as if Liverpool have to impress Jürgen Klopp. It should be the other way round.”
Neville has also criticised the excitement surrounding Klopp’s arrival and believes that it is a sign that there is an idea spreading that an English manager will no longer be in the running to win the Premier League.
I have almost given up on the idea of an English manager winning the league
“The other issue is that of the English manager,” Neville adds. “I have almost given up on the idea of an English manager winning the league. We have lost every ounce of belief in our own system, our own ability to coach and manage. It has never been at a lower ebb. And that’s reflected in the way we have greeted a foreign manager this week. I bet Klopp can’t believe it. If a German manager went to Spain there is no way the Spanish would react in this manner.”
In terms of the English options available, Alan Pardew finished the 2014/15 season as the highest-placed English manager in the Premier League through Crystal Palace’s 10th-place. Rodgers was the top British manager in the league, but his departure means that Swansea’s Garry Monk would have taken the accolade through their eighth place.
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