The solution is at home, the club has coaches capable of replacing Klopp

Pep Lijnders insists it makes sense to leave Liverpool alongside Jürgen Klopp at the end of the season. Liverpool confirmed last week that Klopp's backroom team would follow him out of Anfield after the German announced his plans to depart this summer. Lijnders initially moved to Liverpool under Brendan Rodgers in 2014 and later worked with Klopp before taking up his first managerial job with NEC Nijmegen in Netherlands. He returned to Liverpool in 2018, playing a key role in the Premier League and Champions League triumphs.

He's full of energy, Klopp thrills Anfield with his post-Chelsea win celebration

The 41-year-old has always been clear about wanting to manage his own team when his time at Anfield ended and has been suggested as a possible successor to Klopp. However, he feels now is the right time to leave alongside the German. "It's not easy, leaving such a club," Lijnders admitted. "But in life I feel always you have to do the right thing and the right thing means that in the summer we said we continue and we go with all we have, we make it 'the Last Dance', we make it like a proper ending.

"Not knowing that it would be that season but knowing that the project is coming to an end. I felt that with the back-up of the ownership, signing the right players, we are just going back to basics. "No negativity: I said it as a joke in pre-season that everybody who is or shows one sign of negativity, I will punch them in the head! Just to make sure that we go and draw a line, we go with a clean sheet.

Lijnders has given fresh insight into the unexpected news of coach Vitor Matos leaving the club, hinting at plans to make him his assistant manager in his next role. He also confessed a desire to meet Liverpool again in the future, suggesting he'd like to manage the Reds if given the chance. "I hope I can give the same emotions and the same joy to the fans in the future, to the new club," he shared with the club. "I really believe that it's a natural progression, how we led this club for the last years, so that's really cool and I can't wait to start.

Conor Bradley, the last Academy gem discovered by Klopp before his departure

Final comments

He added: "But probably in a few months' time I will sit down with my manager, now is not the time, but then I will see what kind of options do I have, which club really wants and in that moment I will make a decision that is for me good, hopefully for Vitor what is good and hopefully for my family. "Yeah, truly and from the bottom of my heart, I just hope that our paths cross again in the future that would be absolutely unbelievable."