The question to Jurgen Klopp - a manager who has just committed to four more years at Anfield - was blunt to the point of being rude: “Do you believe Steven Gerrard will be the next Liverpool manager?”
Even as the subject was raised, Klopp began chortling…his humour no doubt provoked by a pre-press conference prediction the question in that exact form was coming. Initially he was asked if it was possible.
Of course he thought it would be possible. Because it is possible. Nothing in football is impossible was his implication, in the hope of swiftly moving on from the subject.
Some hope. The question got firmer, blunter. But did he actually see it happening? Again, just a touch insensitive given one of the two best managers in world football right now has at least four more years steering one of the best two teams in the world. His response though, was revealing, even if it seemed evasive. “I have no idea. It is not my decision to make. But yeah, I think it is possible, that’s it.”
Klopp has huge respect for Gerrard, both as a world-class player and leader, and also as a young coach who has tried to do things the right way. The Liverpool legend, following advice from the German manager who advised him at the end of his playing career, took a job in the Anfield club’s academy, to learn the basics of coaching away from the searing spotlight he’d been under for 20 years or more.
He was helped by Klopp along the way, with regular advice, and also helped hugely by the manager’s coach staff and academy staff. Gerrard in return has been respectful and appreciative of what the Reds boss has done for him. Which is one of the reasons why the Reds boss is showing respect and appreciation. Yet if he were to answer truthfully about the identity of his successor and his actual own preference, then even with all respect to Gerrard, he’d have to come up with another name: Pepijn Lijnders.
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Klopp’s assistant manager has openly expressed his desire to one day become a manager in his own right, and to one day aspire to the Liverpool job. Yet Lijnders put that ambition on hold, to sign a new contract himself at the same time as his boss, to commit to four more years as an assistant at Anfield. Klopp made clear when he signed and his coaching team signed for four more years that he is not only appreciative of the work his staff have done, but also of the talent and ambition that Lijnders has.
He said: "I know Pep will be an outstanding manager in the future. But what is better - being first-team coach with massive influence in a world-class club or going out there being in the wrong club being the main man and lose more often than not? So we are all smart enough to know not to take this situation for granted. We have now an agreement for another while and everybody is really happy for a while. And we don't hold anyone back. Pep’s own ambitions will never stop and I will never stop it.”
Gerrard will also be an outstanding manager in the future. He already is an outstanding manager. But Klopp is inevitably loyal to his number two, and absolutely rightly so. He knows absolutely you can’t have trust from your staff and not return it. When it comes to it, IF Klopp is asked for his advice on an eventual successor, then he would undoubtedly put Lijnders in the frame. That is a given. So his apparently evasive answers to an inevitable question when Gerrard is facing his former club next, were not disrespectful, or indicative of any doubt about the Villa manager’s credentials. It is just loyalty. Of the best kind. And a belief in the qualities of someone whose work he sees on a daily basis.
