Dave Kidd: Jurgen Klopp’s row with Mo Salah will define the collapse of his Liverpool empire… he totally botched exit
IT is the image which will define the collapse of Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool empire.
A manager who admitted at least five months ago he was running out of gas, having a heated touchline row with a star player who wanted to take the Saudi shilling last summer.
The sanctimonious ‘This Means More’ brigade have turned on Mo Salah for his petulance, while arriving as a late sub as Liverpool’s title chances moved from slim to non-existent in Saturday’s 2-2 draw at West Ham.
And Salah’s behaviour certainly told us that the extreme unity of Klopp’s ‘Mentality Monsters’ was a thing of the past.
Salah has still had a decent individual season but there have only been three Premier League goals from the Egyptian since Klopp handed in his notice and since his injury at the Africa Cup of Nations.
And Liverpool’s only genuinely convincing display during their recent season-wrecking, ten-match run was the 3-1 win at Fulham — when Salah was dropped.
Still, Klopp should take the lion’s share of the blame for Liverpool’s capitulation because the German has botched his exit.
When he announced his intention to quit the club in January, Liverpool were top of the league having suffered a single — unjust — defeat all season, thanks to a VAR debacle at Tottenham.
While a quadruple was always a long shot, it was not entirely unrealistic.
And a second Premier League title was very much on.
But Klopp is burnt-out, quite understandably, and he knew as much in November when he told his staff he would leave at the end of this season.
Indeed, Klopp’s No 2 Pep Lijnders said he knew last summer that ‘we were going towards the end of this project’.
As an elite football manager, when you know your time is up, you’re no longer fully effective.
And when you’ve told
Read on m.allfootballapp.com
