Jamie Carragher has shared what Sir Alex Ferguson told him just a month after Jurgen Klopp had arrived at Liverpool.
Speaking after Tuesday night’s 4-0 win over Manchester United , Liverpool legend Carragher had just watched Klopp’s side move two points clear of Manchester City in the Premier League title race. The victory was another important step for the Reds as they continued their march towards an unprecedented quadruple.
When Klopp took over from Brendan Rodgers in October 2015, Liverpool were sat in mid-table. However, Carragher has revealed that legendary United manager Ferguson was almost immediately “worried” the German's arrival on Merseyside.
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“I played in a game at Old Trafford, I think it was Michael Carrick’s testimonial, and Alex Ferguson went around the dressing room shaking hands, saying ‘thanks for coming’, I think he was manager of one of the teams,” he told the Gary Neville Podcast . “Jurgen Klopp had been at the club about a month and he [Ferguson] came to me and said, ‘you’ve got a manager’. I went, ‘oh yeah, good, Jurgen Klopp’s made a decent start’, and he [Ferguson] said, ‘no, no, I’m worried’.
“And that was at the time I think Manchester United were still above Liverpool, but he [Ferguson] knew through meeting him I think at the UEFA meetings or the Champions League, wherever it was, he could feel that sort of personality.
“You talk about great managers and tactics and formations, the great managers all have that, of course they do, but it’s a force of personality, and that’s what Jurgen Klopp has, that’s what Sir Alex Ferguson’s got.
“I think at the end of his [Klopp’s] time, it will feel like when Bill Shankly left Liverpool. The feeling with Liverpool supporters already is, ‘he’s not going to go in two years is he?’. People are already thinking about that now because of the effect he’s had on this football club.”
Reflecting on his own playing career, Carragher believes he never played under a manager of Klopp’s calibre. Having watched the likes of United and Chelsea win league titles because of the world-class managers they had in charge at the time, the former England international believes that Klopp is more important than any player within the Liverpool squad.
“I always think with the great managers, and we never had one [at Liverpool] who was acclaimed like a Ferguson, or what Jose [Mourinho] was at Chelsea, or what [Arsene] Wenger was at Arsenal, that’s what Klopp is right now,’ Carragher continued.
“I used to always feel [with] those managers, there was the fear but there was also the love – so the player never wanted to let them down but they were absolutely terrified of them. So when you see Jurgen Klopp, he’s bigger than any player.
“If you ask any Liverpool player who they would want to lose – Van Dijk or Jurgen Klopp, they’d say Van Dijk, I can absolutely assure you. Jurgen Klopp is an absolute God here, but with the players as well.
“You can see and feel that energy from the side of the pitch. When Jurgen Klopp first came to Liverpool we knew he was a character, he was a personality, I actually said at the time this wasn’t a signing just for Liverpool, it was for the Premier League. You knew there was something special.”
