Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has announced that he will step down at the end of the season.
The 56-year-old said on Friday that he had informed the club’s ownership of his decision to stand down, having first taken charge at Anfield in 2015.
Klopp has won six major honours in that time, including the Premier League title in 2020 – the club's first for 30 years – and the Champions League trophy the year before.
“I can understand that it’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”, said Klopp.
“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.”
Klopp followed Brendan Rodgers as Liverpool boss in October 2015, having built his reputation at Mainz and then Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga.
Under his leadership, Dortmund won back-to-back German titles in 2011 and 2012 and he took them to the 2013 Champions League final, where they lost to Bayern Munich at Wembley.
Since moving to England, Klopp has won the Premier League, the Champions League, the FA Cup, the League Cup, the Fifa Club World Cup and the Uefa Super Cup.
“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,” Klopp added.
“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. I obviously start thinking about it.”
Klopp also said that given the Reds’ struggles last season, he may not have lasted the campaign at another club.
“Last season was kind of a super-difficult season and there were moments when at other clubs probably the decision would have been, ‘Come on, thank you very much for everything but probably we should split here, or end it here’ That didn’t happen here, obviously,” he added.
“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. 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 per cent right.”
The German announces his decision to leave with Liverpool top of the Premier League and he says he wants his players to use it as motivation to make his final season at the club a memorable one.
“Let’s now really go for it. The outside world want to use this decision, laugh about it, want to disturb us,” he said.
“We are Liverpool, we went through harder things together. And you went through harder things before me. Let’s make a strength of it. That would be really cool. Let’s squeeze everything out of this season and have another thing to smile about when we look back in the future.”
