Jurgen Klopp has already decided on his next move and should ignore his own Liverpool warning

It’s been four weeks since Jurgen Klopp took charge of his last match as Liverpool manager - and the German is already enjoying quite the summer!

He returned to Liverpool for ‘An evening with Jurgen Klopp’ at the M&S Bank Arena and was back at Anfield earlier this week for the first concert of Taylor Swift’s three-day Eras tour at the Reds’ famous ground.

Just 24 hours later, he was in Munich for the opening match of Euro 2024 as Germany thrashed Scotland 5-1 to start the tournament in style. Klopp also attended the Champions League final at Wembley earlier this month as former club Borussia Dortmund lost 2-0 to Real Madrid.

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Snubbing punditry offers for both that final and the European Championship, we have also seen Klopp move to Majorca and work on his padel skills. And having become a grandfather last year, he is making the most of his sabbatical, having cut short his last break from the game after just five months to take over the Reds in October 2015.

Yet despite insisting he wanted to take a year out from the game, that hasn’t stopped the speculation regarding what Klopp will do next when he returns to football. Only this week, his agent dismissed suggestions that he was due to become the new head of football for the Red Bull group as ‘total nonsense.’

He has also been linked with a return to Borussia Dortmund as their new club president. Links with the German national team job also remain.

For the record, Klopp has already hinted that he might not ever return to club management, though he is not ruling it out entirely.

"It's out of the question that I'll stop working altogether," the German said recently on the Willipedia podcast. "But I don't see myself continuing at the same pace as before at the moment.

"A coach is a coach. And you do it with everything you have, or nothing at all. That's how I understand it. Now I'm taking my time off. How am I supposed to know how I'll feel during or after the time off, and what I want to do then? I have no idea. Let's wait and see."

Klopp, who celebrates his 57th birthday today, is understandably in no rush to cut short his sabbatical after serving nine years as Liverpool boss. But onlookers are seemingly not patient enough to ‘wait and see’ what he does next, with there remaining a fascination as to when he will return to football and in what role.

During Klopp's stint in charge of the Reds, it became an increasing narrative how departing players would swiftly find out that the grass was not greener elsewhere.

"Stay here and they will end up building a statue in your honour," he famously told Philippe Coutinho ahead of his club record £142m exit to Barcelona. "Go somewhere else, to Barcelona, to Bayern Munich, to Real Madrid, and you will be just another player. Here you can be something more."

Coutinho ultimately flopped at the Nou Camp and has struggled to ever reach the same heights he achieved at Liverpool again. Over six years on, the 32-year-old is reportedly set to cancel his contract with Aston Villa and re-sign for Vasco da Gama.

Yet he is not the only player to learn the cold truth about post-Anfield life the hard way. Emre Can, Gini Wijnaldum, Sadio Mane, Divock Origi, Jordan Henderson, Roberto Firmino and Naby Keita all fell into the same trap.

Granted, Can-aside, they all became ‘something more’ at Liverpool first before seeing their fortunes falter elsewhere. But with the Reds winning every major honour under Klopp over the past nine years, it was perhaps inevitable that whatever came next would struggle to live up to those previous experiences.

But will the manager himself be helpless to avoid that same downward trajectory once he embarks on his next move, whenever that might be?

In fairness, he doesn’t need to worry about it and shouldn't concern himself with his own previous post-Liverpool warning. Given the fragile state of management, where the majority of stints don’t have a happy ending, former Reds bosses have historically enjoyed success after leaving Anfield behind.

Starting with Sir Kenny Dalglish, who was 39 years old when he resigned as Liverpool manager for the first time in 1991, he memorably won the Premier League with Blackburn Rovers in 1994/95 just three years after guiding the Ewood Park outfit to promotion to the English top-flight.

Scottish and English League Cups would follow with Celtic and Liverpool, before he essentially retired from management at 61 years of age when departing the Reds for a second time in 2012.

Graeme Souness won the Turkish Cup with Galatasaray in 1996 and League Cup with Blackburn in 2002 after his underwhelming stint at Anfield, and also had spells in charge of Southampton, Torino, Benfica and Newcastle United.

While Roy Evans never managed in the top-flight again after leaving Liverpool in 1998, Gerard Houllier continued Lyon’s dominance in Ligue 1 by winning two league titles before ill-health forced his departure from Aston Villa in 2011.

Rafa Benitez has managed the likes of Inter Milan, Chelsea, Napoli and Newcastle United since leaving Liverpool, as well as being granted his dream job in charge of Real Madrid. While not all stints were successful, he went on to win the FIFA Club World Cup, Europa League, Coppa Italia and Championship.

While Roy Hodgson would remain trophyless after his unsuccessful stint at Liverpool, with his last silverware clinched with Copenhagen in 2001, he did embark on his own two dream jobs during his post Reds career. After avoiding relegation with West Bromwich Albion, he took over as England manager, and later enjoyed two stints in charge of his boyhood club, Crystal Palace.

As for Brendan Rodgers, he was yet to win a major trophy when he departed Anfield in October 2015. Now enjoying a second stint with Celtic, after returning to the Premier League with Leicester City, his collection is a lot more impressive.

Lifting the FA Cup with the Foxes, and regularly qualifying for Europe, he has also won a treble of Scottish trebles with the Hoops, lifting the Scottish Premiership, FA Cup and League Cup in 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2023/24.

Evidently, in management there is always another job. But Klopp already knows that following emotional exits from both Mainz and Borussia Dortmund prior to taking over at Liverpool.

He has admittedly achieved more than any of his aforementioned predecessors in the Reds hotseat, and will be regarded as one of the club’s greatest ever managers. He would be deserving of a statue being built in his honour - even if he doesn’t consider one necessary.

An all-time managerial great, Klopp is in a league of his own and has already won everything there is to win in both England and Germany. Leaving the Reds was always the beginning of something new. Content with what he has achieved, there is nothing left to prove.

He has always been open about his desire to embrace early retirement, regularly declaring he would never remain in management for as long as Hodgson for example - who packed earlier this season at 76 years of age.

That is the inevitable next move, with his sabbatical perhaps deciding how many steps he has to take first and just how much life is actually left in his football career. But that doesn’t mean a love of the game won’t bring him back from being ready to embrace retirement once and for all.

Ultimately, Klopp’s next move is a journey to decide what he actually wants to do next. Consequently, it is a question that not even the man himself knows the answer to yet.

But having turned doubters into believers at Anfield, Liverpool supporters will be in doubt that he will surely flourish wherever he ends up in the future.