Jurgen Klopp has spoken further about his future at Liverpool, with the manager confirming his plan is to depart in 2024, when his current contract expires.
Klopp signed a new four-and-a-half-year deal with the club in 2019, and by the time that runs out, he will have been at Anfield for almost nine years.
That will comfortably be the longest managerial reign of his career – and it could well be his last, with the German maintaining his plan to retire before he gets too old to enjoy life outside of football.
Having cleared up comments on his future in his pre-West Ham press conference, Klopp then spoke further on the subject in his follow-up with journalists.
Emphatically, he said: “The plan is, in the moment: 2024, thank you very much.”
However, the 54-year-old has not entirely ruled out a continued stay on Merseyside, explaining that his ongoing commitment to Liverpool depends on if he has “the energy level for it.”
“Because it’s important,” he elaborated.
“I love what I do, but – I’ve said it a couple of times – there must be something else out there in the world, to be honest, apart from always thinking about probably skilled, good-looking, fantastically nice football players.
“But I really don’t think about it, honestly. At the moment, I’m full of energy, but we have to make sure that that’s the case.
“I don’t want to sit around and be more often tired than not and think: ‘Why is everybody bothered about the things out there? I couldn’t care less’. So that’s it.”
Whether or not Klopp stays with Liverpool beyond the end of the 2023/24 campaign will be at the forefront of the club’s wider planning in the years to come.
Fenway Sports Group will regularly monitor potential successors, with Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard and Klopp’s current assistant Pepijn Lijnders both viable candidates.
And to ensure whoever takes the job next finds themselves in the strongest possible position, Klopp is leading a project to future-proof the club.
“My future will be OK. I don’t have to plan. I could book last minute, let me say it like this. That’s not the problem,” he continued.
“No, the plan is for the future of the club, which we are constantly working on, that everything is in place.
“The things we do are not for me or for us or for this generation, they are for a long, long time.
“So many things we tried to improve over the years.
“In the beginning, I think a lot of people thought ‘he’s from Germany, now we do it like the Germans do it’. Not at all.
“I was nearly 20 years working in Germany, it’s not that I thought: ‘Oh my god, we are perfect. I should bring all that stuff to other countries’. I didn’t think that for a second.
“It’s just doing the right things, employing the right people, putting them in the right positions – and that doesn’t mean you win the title, it just means you have the right people for the right job, so use them. That’s what we try.
“These people, we have a lot of them here in the moment. That’s the plan, that things will be good, will be fine, even after I leave – whenever it will be.”
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