Jurgen Klopp’s shock Liverpool exit is the ultimate cost of his full-throttle football

The Reds manager will leave the club at the end of the season after nine years in charge

Jurgen Klopp addressed his decision to leave Liverpool in a press conference on Friday (PA)

Eight years and three months earlier, at his unveiling at Anfield, Jurgen Klopp had pronounced himself as “the normal one”. It proved one of the most deceptive things he ever said, but after a distinctly abnormal reign, he will leave Liverpool on a quest for a little normality. “I arrived here like a normal guy and I never lived that,” he said. “I don’t know how normal life is so I have to find out.”

His achievements are such that he will not be granted anonymity, but he is savouring the thought of time off from football. “No club, no country for the next year, no English club ever, I can promise that, even if I have nothing to eat – that will not happen, by the way, thanks to Liverpool,” he said. Chief executive Billy Hogan smiled as he recounted how his son had said he thought Klopp would manage Liverpool forever. Now, to his disappointment, they are counting down the days to his departure.

A resignation that sent shockwaves through football left Klopp with a sense of relief. The responsibility of managing Liverpool has weighed heavy on him. He has the chance to go out on a high in the summer: perhaps with a quadruple, perhaps empty-handed but either way, he insisted, he will not do what Sir Alex Ferguson did in the 2001-02 season and revoke his decision to leave. Klopp is confident he remains at the peak of his powers, worried that if he continued exhaustion would render him a passenger. If it is right for him to go, he argued, it becomes right for Liverpool.