James Pearce shares interesting ‘off the record’ detail he was told about Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool exit

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Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool exit was one of the most shocking moments in the club’s recent history.While his contract still had two years left to run, the German decided he had had enough and walked away in the summer of 2024.Announcing his exit in January, Klopp admitted that he had simply run out of the energy needed to lead a club the size of Liverpool.Join our newsletter for news & smart analysis. It hurt so much because of how wonderful a manager – and person – Klopp had been.Since his exit, Klopp has appeared in public many times, talking over his departure from Anfield.

However, journalist James Pearce says he has now uncovered a new nugget of information about what really went on behind the scenes.Photo by John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty ImagesJurgen Klopp knew he wanted to leave Liverpool in 2022It was an almighty shame that Liverpool could not end Klopp’s final season at the club by signing off with the Premier League trophy.However, after the 58-year-old rebuilt the Liverpool squad in the summer of 2023, he at least left Arne Slot with the tools needed to go on and win it in his first season in charge.READ MORE: When Alisson Becker is hoping to return and push Giorgi Mamardashvili back to the Liverpool benchPart of Klopp’s legacy will always be that he stayed on and left the Reds in a position of strength. Had he left in 2023, for example, Slot would have had a huge rebuild on his hands.And according to Pearce, Klopp was actually feeling like he wanted to walk away before the end of the 2022/23 campaign.

“If you remember rightly, Liverpool were at a training camp in Dubai, and the idea was that obviously the Qatar World Cup was on, and as players got knocked out of that tournament, they’d link up with the Liverpool squad ahead of the season restarting.“And yeah, people said that that was when they first started to sense that everything was not absolutely fine with Jurgen in terms of the demands and the pressures getting to him.”Klopp’s Liverpool legacy will always be rememberedJurgen Klopp was no ordinary football manager. If he were, he would have slapped his resignation letter in front of the Liverpool owners in December 2022.At the very least, most managers would have seen out the season before deciding to call it a day.What Klopp did instead should be remembered as one of the most selfless acts by a manager in Liverpool history.Having steered the team to a disappointing 5th-place finish in 2023, Klopp decided that that simply would not do.