Anfield job in 2012’

were not comfortable in their skin. They had signed for Liverpool and found it difficult to catch up with the expectation of the people.

“The four years comment was not exactly to buy time, but I know how football works. If you do not go where people want you to go early enough, it will not happen. What I meant to say was [if we do not win a trophy] you will need a coach from Switzerland. Either way, it was b------! It was more you will have to try with somebody else.”

The Champions League, Premier League, Club World Cup, FA Cup and two League Cups barely scratch the surface of the transformation.

The title near-misses in 2019 and 2022 still burn. “We were unlucky or maybe in moments not good enough to win three Premier Leagues, three Champions League. We all know with a little bit better decision here or there we were that close. Minutes, millimetres, inches decided things for us,” he says.

“Is it Sky TV that always shows Vinny’s screamer [ Vincent Kompany’s 2019 goal for Manchester City against Leicester City]? From time to time you see and think, ‘Are you kidding me? Are you really kidding me?’

“Seconds before that goal I was thinking, ‘Come on Brendan [Rogers, the Leicester manager], take [James] Maddison off, he’s tired’. He was five yards away and just had to move to block the shot. I was lying on my sofa with my hands in my pockets and a second later I felt like I’d had a stroke.”

The pain of 2018 and 2022 Champions League final defeats by Real Madrid has not subsided, either, most obviously when Klopp references the match-winning performance of “that f------ [ Thibaut] Courtois”.

“Could it have been more successful? Yes,” he says, having paused and then laughed for dramatic impact. “We did absolutely everything. I am very self- critical but I do not reflect in a critical way. We had really good times with super football moments, real development, tough moments, overcoming them. I look back with a smile.

“I am so happy that we can leave a club in that position where it is healthy. That is what I am most proud of. That we could manage that, with all the things that happened in crazy times. We never overdid it.”

“Never overdid it”. It is an interesting, deliberately careful choice of words, Klopp acutely aware his legacy will be enhanced in the, albeit unlikely, event of City’s 115 charges leading to retrospective action. So how about his feats being immortalised by a statue, Klopp permanently and symbolically alongside Shankly at the Kop end?

“I don’t need it,” Klopp says. Shankly had passed away before he was granted that honour. “Well then, they have another 40 years to think about that!” Klopp suggests.

Statue or not, they do not yearn for a new Shankly at Liverpool anymore. That is the real triumph of the past nine years. Future generations will want to serenade their own Jurgen Klopp.

Fenway Sports Group’s transfer policy

“People say, ‘They didn’t back him enough’, and stuff like that, but I never saw it that way. If my son asked me for €50 and I only had 25, what can I do besides just give him the 25? I didn’t want to bring this feeling to the outside world that we are not united. If we had an argument it was internal and on the outside we say it’s our way and that is how we do it. I don’t know any other way. I understood that it was our way. The Liverpool way.”

Near-misses against City (2019-22)

“In those seasons we had 364 days, really enjoyable, when we had 90-odd points and were nearly there. Then in the one moment it is awful, horrible; the block at City [John Stones in 2019], the handball of Rodri [v Everton in 2022], so many little things where you thought,

‘Oh my god’.”

Dealing with the media

“You know how many interviews we have after a game? Why should I have a personal problem with you, but if you deliver the s--- message when I’m not in my best moment, that’s where we clash. Like the poor guy from Denmark. I had already had seven or eight interviews, and then he hits that [button] where he says it’s usually you who has intensity. I actually thought I dealt really well with it. If I would have said what I was really thinking, I would have killed him!”

The team he leaves for Arne Slot

“It is really healthy, a very vital club with a wonderful training ground, sensational stadium, financially not bad. On roses? We never were but solid, on a high level. Let’s go from there. That gives me the best feeling. Arsenal are young. They can go again, Pep [Guardiola] will not stay at City for ever, and even [Kevin] De Bruyne gets older. So there is a good chance to stay in that group.”

On way: Arne Slot