Latest news with #Jurgen
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
From 'finish with Jurgen' to Man City and Guardiola
Pepijn Lijnders once called Jurgen Klopp his "proper football brother," but now he has joined one of his biggest rivals in Pep Guardiola. Manchester City have confirmed Lijnders will become a part of Guardiola's coaching staff, along with former Liverpool opposition analyst James French. Advertisement The 42-year-old was Klopp's assistant when Liverpool won the Premier League and Champions League, standing down from the role when the German left the club in 2024. Speaking last year, Lijnders told the Liverpool club website: "I always said I will finish with Jurgen; the moment I will not assist anyone else, that's the moment I will go and I will manage. That was always the case. "I owe this club everything. They don't owe me anything, to be honest. It's 10 years full of dedication. So when we [me and Jurgen] spoke, it was clear for me, I go and manage, and we end this project together," he added. Lijnders has had two spells as a manager - briefly leaving Liverpool in 2018 to manage NEC in the Netherlands, before a spell with Red Bull Salzburg at the beginning of last season, with both culminating in his dismissal. Without a club since December, the Dutchman has taken the step back from being a manager and once again will be an assistant.
Sunday World
28-04-2025
- Sport
- Sunday World
Captain Virgil van Dijk gives his verdict as Liverpool are crowned as champions
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk hailed his side as the "truly deserved" champions of England after they secured the Premier League title with four games to spare. A 5-1 victory over Tottenham at Anfield saw the Reds crowned English champions for the 20th time, equalling Manchester United's record. "It's special and it's something that we don't take for granted. It's amazing," Van Dijk said as he and his team-mates celebrated on the pitch. "A lot of emotions before the game, during the whole week, but we got the job done and we (are) truly deserved champions of England. "(Liverpool is) the most beautiful club in the world and I think we deserve all of this. Let's enjoy the next couple of weeks and let it sink in." Liverpool's title triumph is their second in five years and came in Arne Slot's first season since succeeding Jurgen Klopp in charge. Slot insisted he had not been concerned when Dominic Solanke gave Spurs an early lead, with Luis Diaz equalising shortly afterwards before Alexis Mac Allister, Cody Gakpo, Mohamed Salah and an own goal from Destiny Udogie sealed a comfortable win. "It wasn't ideal but it didn't take me a long time to trust these players, they always come back, they always find a way to win," Slot told Sky Sports. Asked how he had made winning the title appear so easy, Slot added: "That's not only my job, it's the job of the players and the staff members standing over there and the work Jurgen (Klopp) and Pepijn (Lijnders) left behind over here. "The culture of the team, the work rate, the quality was outstanding. We all knew that. We started off really well and it maybe helped a bit that (Manchester City) had a difficult spell, which they hadn't had in five years. "When the season started everyone would have been happy if we were in the top four for Champions League again but I don't think that was fair to our players because they are much better than that and that's what they have showed this season." Salah, whose goal took him into fifth place in the all-time Premier League scorers list with 185 goals, was asked to compare this season's title victory with the one under Klopp in 2020. "This is way better, 100 per cent," he told Sky Sports. "Without Sadio (Mane), without Jurgen, without Bobby (Firmino) - without everybody it feels more special. We have a different group now, different manager, so to be able to do it again is something special." Asked if Slot had made him a better player, Salah joked: "You can see the numbers - it seems so! "He was very honest. He's quite tough his personality, but he made our lives easier because you knew immediately what he wanted you to do, which is what we did." Speaking after his side's victory over Nottingham Forest in their FA Cup semi-final, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola praised Liverpool for ending City's run of four straight league titles. "First of all, I want to congratulate Liverpool," Guardiola said. "It is well deserved, a fantastic team, and hopefully next season we can be better. "This season it couldn't be possible, so congratulations to Liverpool."
Irish Independent
27-04-2025
- Sport
- Irish Independent
‘We deserve all of this' – Captain Virgil can Dijk celebrates Liverpool's crowning glory
A 5-1 victory over Tottenham at Anfield saw the Reds crowned English champions for the 20th time, equalling Manchester United's record. "It's special and it's something that we don't take for granted. It's amazing," Van Dijk said as he and his team-mates celebrated on the pitch. "A lot of emotions before the game, during the whole week, but we got the job done and we (are) truly deserved champions of England. "(Liverpool is) the most beautiful club in the world and I think we deserve all of this. Let's enjoy the next couple of weeks and let it sink in." Liverpool's title triumph is their second in five years and came in Arne Slot's first season since succeeding Jurgen Klopp in charge. Slot insisted he had not been concerned when Dominic Solanke gave Spurs an early lead, with Luis Diaz equalising shortly afterwards before Alexis Mac Allister, Cody Gakpo, Mohamed Salah and an own goal from Destiny Udogie sealed a comfortable win. "It wasn't ideal but it didn't take me a long time to trust these players, they always come back, they always find a way to win," Slot told Sky Sports. Asked how he had made winning the title appear so easy, Slot added: "That's not only my job, it's the job of the players and the staff members standing over there and the work Jurgen (Klopp) and Pepijn (Lijnders) left behind over here. "The culture of the team, the work rate, the quality was outstanding. We all knew that. We started off really well and it maybe helped a bit that (Manchester City) had a difficult spell, which they hadn't had in five years. "When the season started everyone would have been happy if we were in the top four for Champions League again but I don't think that was fair to our players because they are much better than that and that's what they have showed this season." Salah, whose goal took him into fifth place in the all-time Premier League scorers list with 185 goals, was asked to compare this season's title victory with the one under Klopp in 2020. "This is way better, 100 per cent," he told Sky Sports. "Without Sadio (Mane), without Jurgen, without Bobby (Firmino) - without everybody it feels more special. We have a different group now, different manager, so to be able to do it again is something special." Asked if Slot had made him a better player, Salah joked: "You can see the numbers - it seems so! "He was very honest. He's quite tough his personality, but he made our lives easier because you knew immediately what he wanted you to do, which is what we did." Speaking after his side's victory over Nottingham Forest in their FA Cup semi-final, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola praised Liverpool for ending City's run of four straight league titles. "First of all, I want to congratulate Liverpool," Guardiola said. "It is well deserved, a fantastic team, and hopefully next season we can be better.
BBC News
03-04-2025
- Business
- BBC News
When Liverpool nearly missed out on Salah
A meeting is about to take place at Liverpool and the subject will be Mohamed one side you have those providing data and video evidence that Salah is the right signing. On the other side is former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp."Jurgen's preferred option for that summer was Julian Brandt, who was a great player," said former Liverpool director of research Ian Graham, who spoke to BBC Sport as part of a documentary released on BBC iPlayer on Friday, 4 April about Liverpool's journey to winning the 2018-19 Champions League."Jurgen had obviously known him very well, coming from the Bundesliga, and knew the German market very well."We agreed that Brandt was a very good young player but not a standout in the same way that Mo was. From our data analysis point of view Mo was the best young wide forward in Europe, full stop."Roma were under pressure to sell because their finances were not in a good place, so we knew he was available for a good price."He played a forward and wide role that we needed to fill at the time, whereas Brandt was more of an attacking midfielder."Graham added: "It's to Jurgen's credit that he engaged in that debate in an honest way with his eyes open to say, 'OK, I'm open to be convinced, show me that Mo is better'."Klopp didn't need much convincing and Liverpool signed Salah from Roma in June 2017 for £ Reds believed the Egypt international would be a "future superstar" and so it has who is yet to agree a new contract with Liverpool beyond this summer, has gone on to become a Liverpool legend. He has scored 243 goals and registered 109 assists for the club in 393 appearances and, under Klopp, helped the Reds win the Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup and Fifa Club World Cup. 'Robust debates' and 'big arguments' Graham was a consultant at Tottenham from 2007-2012 but "they never really had the ambition to make more" of data whereas he said "Liverpool were the first team to have an in-house analytics department".He was at Liverpool from 2012 to 2023 and was a key part of the 'Moneyball' strategy - the statistical method Major League Baseball side Oakland Athletics used in the 1990s to recruit players - that Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) adopted at the club."Moneyball is really the concept of, 'can we get more value for money out of our squad? Can we get more performance per pound spent? Because, if we can, that means we can compete with clubs with a higher budget than us'," said Graham."We started off with about seven or eight different leagues, by the time I left we were probably taking data from about 60 different leagues so that we really understood what players could do on the pitch."Graham worked under former Liverpool sporting director Michael Edwards, who left the club in 2022 before returning as FSG's chief executive of football in pair were part of a transfer committee who, along with Liverpool's manager, would "come to a consensus decision on the best players to sign".Liverpool had appointed Klopp as manager in October 2015 and his willingness to engage in the use of data in recruitment was in contrast to his predecessor Brendan Rodgers."Previously, we had robust debates with Brendan about which players to sign and the two differences were our ideas about which players would improve Liverpool were very different to Brendan's ideas," said Graham."Brendan, understandably, put a big premium on Premier League experience whereas we felt those players were quite often overvalued by the market and players from other markets, like Mo Salah and Roberto Firmino, were undervalued."Graham explained that Rodgers "came in with a preconception that the player he wanted to sign was the only solution for that position" and that "it was very difficult to persuade him otherwise".In Klopp, Graham said they had found the "missing piece" and, in some cases, "a manager who seemed to see what the data saw".He added: "He [Jurgen] is very happy to thank us for our suggestions to have stopped some of the less sensible signings, which at the time caused big arguments but, in retrospect, he could see this was a good process for signing players." 'The club and data approach needed trophy' Klopp had managed at Mainz and Borussia Dortmund in Germany, winning the Bundesliga in 2011 and 2012 with the first trophy at Liverpool was the 2019 Champions League, with data playing "a big part in signing" nine of the 11 Liverpool players who started the final against Tottenham - in a game the Reds won 2-0."The club needed it and, from our point of view, the data approach needed it as well," said Graham on that piece of silverware."Looking back, it is a source of pride and is some validation that data can be of help. It adds to recruitment."Our data analysis means nothing without the scouts to understand the traditional way of viewing a player, without Jurgen to get the best out of the players, without the ownership to trust in the process and without the sporting director to make decisions based on what the data is telling him."Jurgen's impact on the Champions League win, it can't really be overstated. His presence at the club attracted some really great players, he got the best out of those players and - by the time of that final - we had a world-class first XI that was quite different to the team that he inherited."Klopp went on to end the club's 30-year wait for a top-flight title by guiding them to the 2019-20 Premier League said: "Jurgen, coming from the German system, was much more happy to take that compromised approach and it worked out really well for Liverpool."
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Jurgen Klopp's old assistant shares Arne Slot verdict and names big change he's seen at Liverpool
Former Liverpool coach Vitor Matos, who departed Anfield at the same time as Jurgen Klopp last summer, has heaped praise on the job that Arne Slot has done since the Dutchman arrived on Merseyside. A handful of wins away from clinching the Premier League title, the transition from Klopp to Slot has been as seamless as it could have been. And Matos, who followed Pep Lijnders to Red Bull Salzburg but has since moved on from that role, has been following along to see how things have been going with his old side. "What Arne did is outstanding, because it is not easy to replace Jurgen," Matos told Training Ground Guru. "We tried to leave the club — and Jurgen left the club — in a really good moment. The idea was to leave the club in a better position than when he arrived. READ MORE: Trent Alexander-Arnold 'of no use to Liverpool' as transfer saga 'turns nasty' READ MORE: Liverpool makes Jarell Quansah stance clear as strong response sent to Newcastle transfer links "The squad we left, we all had a feeling it was a squad ready to win titles. They have an unbelievable team in terms of togetherness. But it's not easy to come to Liverpool, a big club, and replace Jurgen, someone who was so loved by everyone. What (Slot) has done is exceptional, of course. The game quality and, at the same time, being able to win consistently and that is the most important thing. "I think the triggers are changing, regarding who starts the press and who follows. Some dynamics were already there in the past, some were new, in terms of the positioning of the full-backs or strikers and the 10 sometimes as well, and even defending a little bit differently in terms of where the press starts on the pitch. "Attacking wise, there are sometimes different starting positions for the full-backs, sometimes they start in deeper lines or facing the game close to the center-backs. Not in all the games — there were different approaches in different games depending on dynamics. "It's not about being better or worse, but about doing things differently. This season they are having a lot of success, so this is good. The most important thing is that there is a clear idea, and this clear idea is possible to achieve with the squad he has and it is possible to have consistently good performance. That says a lot about Arne and a lot about the whole club on the moment as well." Matos also lifted the lid on what changes he has spotted with individual players this season. The most obvious is the emergence of Ryan Gravenberch as a world-class operator. "You can see players in different roles and one of those is Gravenberch, who is doing an outstanding season as a number six," Matos said. "That is something that completely improved by itself the offensive game, in terms of how the ball moves, how the ball breaks lines, and the direction he can give with one touch. "Sometimes this kind of thing happens — a need creates an opportunity and this creates a beautiful idea. In the beginning of the season, everyone spoke about Liverpool needing to sign a number six, because there was no one. Alexis (Mac Allister) was coming back from the Copa (America) and Ryan grabbed the spot and grabbed it outstandingly. "That creates a different dynamic and different things. We never used Ryan in that position before, because Alexis and Wataru (Endo) were doing outstanding for us. Ryan arrived at the club having had almost one season without consistent game time, so it was not easy for him to adapt. "We all saw his potential when we played against Ajax (in the Champions League in 2020), when he was there, and we were not able to catch him on that transfer window, so he went to Bayern (Munich). But we all — especially Jurgen and Pep — were big believers in him. "We all saw his potential in terms of quality, so it was a matter of consistency and opportunity. This season, everything came together, and I'm really happy for him and for Liverpool." says: Things couldn't have gone much better for Slot, in truth. Gravenberch has been a revelation and it was unfortunate for the Reds to draw PSG so early on in Europe. Changes will come in the summer but there is a very strong base to start from.
