Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool achievements deserve even greater praise in wake of the Man City judgment

For Jurgen Klopp, it was never just about the glory and the silverware.

The German coach was at peace with what he had achieved during his eight-and-a-half-year reign at Liverpool when he wearily walked away from Anfield in May 2024.

The final date in his emotion-fuelled goodbye tour was at the city’s M&S Bank Arena, where a sell-out 10,000-strong crowd reduced him to tears with their booming show of adulation.

Puffing out his cheeks as he tried to gather his thoughts on stage, Klopp said: “I don’t think the human race is made for getting as much attention as I’ve had over the past few weeks. I wasn’t ready to receive this much love. The decision to come to Liverpool, besides marrying Ulla, was the best decision of my life.

“If it was easy to leave, then what would that say about the time we had together? It’s really difficult to leave and that’s how it should be. Let’s not be sad that it’s ending, be happy that it happened.”

When host comedian John Bishop turned the conversation to rivals Manchester City, Klopp was philosophical about the two Premier League title races that ended with his Liverpool side finishing a solitary point behind City in both 2018-19 and 2021-22.

“You might remember the game we played against Man City where the ball was pretty much in before John Stones cleared it (off the line in a 2-1 defeat for Liverpool at the Etihad in January 2019),” he recalled.

“Then City won at Burnley with the ball over the line by the same distance. Can you be more unlucky? It’s just a fact. It’s not that I wake up in the night and think, ‘Oh my god, 11 inches!’. (Stones’ intervention had actually been with 11 millimetres to spare). Then there was the handball of Rodri against Everton (when a penalty wasn’t awarded against City in February 2022), come on! But I’m still a happy man.

“If I came in here tonight and said goodbye, would you be in a different mood if you won the league three times? The relationships we created are independent of trophies. It’s based on trust, togetherness, and the things we went through together.”

Klopp had a point. His place in the pantheon of Anfield icons isn’t defined by a haul that included the Champions League, Premier League, UEFA Super Cup, Club World Cup, FA Cup and two League Cups. It was about the journey he masterminded and how he carried people with him by energising a fanbase with his breathless brand of attacking football and force of personality.

However, Klopp’s wider legacy also has to be reassessed in the wake of an independent commission finding Manchester City guilty of almost all charges relating to breaches of the Premier League’s financial regulations.

Klopp’s Liverpool versus Pep Guardiola’s City has arguably been the Premier League era’s biggest box-office attraction. Their rivalry didn’t have the managerial hostility of, say, Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United against Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal, as mutual respect abounded on the

But in terms of the tactical battles and the sheer quality of the spectacles Klopp and Guardiola regularly served up, it was unmatched. Both coaches assembled two of the finest teams English football has ever seen, and they pushed each other to greater heights.

Klopp was never shy about pointing out that City had a significant advantage in squad investment, but given the tribal nature of football, sympathy outside Liverpool’s fanbase was always in short supply.

A regular riposte was that Liverpool were hardly paupers themselves, given that Klopp boasted both the most expensive defender and goalkeeper in world football when they followed up the £75million signing of Virgil van Dijk from Southampton in January 2018 by buying Alisson from Roma for £65million six months later. Less was made of the fact that those transformational signings were only possible courtesy of the £142million sale of Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona.

However, the full extent to which the rivalry was stacked in City’s favour was laid bare last week courtesy of the Premier League’s Core Decision, as it clarified how deals with commercial partners helped to artificially inflate their revenue and reduce their costs by more than £900million ($1.19bn) between 2009 and 2018.

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said the findings detailed “how the club systematically broke Premier League rules for nearly a decade”. City, who claim to have “irrefutable evidence” to prove their innocence, have lodged an appeal against the ruling. A statement insisted they are “innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League”.

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If they fail in their bid to get it overturned, then regardless of whether titles are subsequently taken off them or reallocated, Guardiola’s array of achievements at the Etihad will be forever tainted.

The charges may only go up to 2018, but the additional income and money spent helped lay the foundations for City to keep dominating after that cut-off point.

Figures released by the commission showed that topped-up commercial income rose after Klopp’s arrival at Liverpool. Their commercial income was topped up by £107.2m in 2014-15, then £120.2m in 2015-16, £129.6m in 2016-17 and £134.7m in 2017-18.

City rapidly accelerated their growth by investing around £1.2bn in signings between 2009 and 2018, with a net spend of around £1bn. Over the same period, Liverpool’s outlay was around £814m with a net spend of around £337m.

Over his Anfield reign, Klopp had to balance the books in a way that was alien to City. Liverpool’s only hope of success during that period was to get their big recruitment decisions spot on, and they largely did. Klopp rarely bought the finished article but developed talent and elevated players into the world-class bracket.

It wasn’t quite going into a gunfight with a pea shooter, but what Klopp built looks even more impressive now.

Liverpool’s tally of 97 points in 2018-19 remains the highest total for a team finishing runners-up in the history of England’s top flight. Back in May 2024, Klopp referenced Stones’ goal-line clearance that proved pivotal when City won a thrilling 2-1 contest at the Etihad in January 2019.

It was Liverpool’s only league defeat that season. How close they were to not only winning the title but being invincible with a century of points.

Remarkably, between February 2019 and February 2020, Klopp’s Liverpool took 110 points out of a possible 114 (the equivalent of a full 38-game league campaign).

The club’s 30-year wait for the title was emphatically ended in 2019-20 with 99 points (18 clear of City), but they were denied all the trappings that should have come with it due to the restrictions in place during the Covid pandemic. Klopp admitted it was his biggest regret.

“Becoming Premier League champion and not having a parade — ridiculous,” he told the crowd in the M&S Bank Arena that night. “It somehow fits Liverpool a bit going through the s***.”

Klopp’s Liverpool also came close to an unprecedented quadruple in 2021-22. After completing a domestic cup double, they were pipped to the league title by City (despite collecting 92 points) and then came up against an inspired Thibaut Courtois in the Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid.

Considering the fine margins, it’s not hard to envisage a scenario where Liverpool would have won considerably more under Klopp if City had stuck to the rules they signed up to.

Imagine how dull that period in English football would have been without Klopp’s Liverpool, given that, but for 2019-20, Guardiola’s City would have celebrated seven successive league titles.

Having previously joked about returning for a bus parade if City were found guilty of cheating and trophies were reallocated, Klopp wasn’t in the mood to add fuel to the fire when asked about the City ruling at a press conference last week.

Context was important given that Klopp had bigger things on his plate before the Nations League game against Serbia, having failed to win either of his first two matches as Germany head coach. He was also aware that the process is ongoing given City’s appeal.

“I know what I said in the past about how if there’s ever a parade I’ll be there, but it doesn’t feel like that anymore,” he told reporters.

Klopp celebrating his one Premier League title in 2020Phil Noble/AFP via Getty Images

“My respect for Pep Guardiola and the football played at City during the time we played against each other, in the way they played back then and how they brought football to life on the pitch, is far too great for me to say anything now. I don’t have any feelings about it. It’s not as if I need that right now, just so I can say, ‘I’ve been English champion more times’.”

The Anfield crowd certainly won’t be as measured when Manchester City turn up on Sunday. A burning sense of injustice hangs over Merseyside, and Enzo Maresca’s side will feel the wrath of the Kop.

Andoni Iraola’s challenge is to ensure his Liverpool side can feed off that energy in the stands and knock City out of their stride.

It will be the first meeting between the clubs without either Klopp or Guardiola on the touchline since March 2015, when Coutinho got the winner for Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool against Manuel Pellegrini’s City.

The chief protagonists may have changed, but history is all over this fixture. And it needs rewriting in the wake of the ruling.

For so long, Guardiola’s era of dominance put Klopp in the shade. The City juggernaut left Klopp viewed as the plucky contender who frequently came up agonisingly short.

But no matter how much of a coaching genius he is, the commission’s judgment shows Guardiola’s club did not play by the same rules. It should result in a wider appreciation of the job Klopp did.