What Jurgen Klopp told journalists about Liverpool statue and Scousers in extended interview

Jurgen Klopp cuts a relaxed figure as he chats to the media on a glorious day at the AXA Training Centre.

Having conducted his pre-match press conference before the visit to Aston Villa some hours earlier at the club's Kirkby complex, the Liverpool boss is more than happy to field some additional questions from a handful of journalists who have followed his every step across a tenure that is close to nine years.

Klopp is in rare form, musing on a number of topics from comparisons with Bill Shankly, what he has learned from the people of city and why he feels a statue in his honour is not needed.

The ECHO was on hand as part of the interview. Here's what Klopp had to say.

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First of all, how do you reflect on the past eight and a half years?

"In this industry, it is so rare that you can create this kind of relationship to a club and to a city because in the beginning, what did we really know? It is not that we can lie. Some may have watched more Liverpool games than I did. In the 15 years before I arrived here I watched loads of football, but did I watch a lot of Liverpool? No.

"The Liverpool I knew was when I was rather younger and you did not have a lot of footage. There was a show called Euro Goals - maybe you didn’t have it here - on a Monday night. They would show all the goals from Europe…England, France… but it was just goals. You couldn’t get anything else.

"So coming here and living the life I did here, dedicating everything to it which is what I had to do for the people is really special. The way people in England see it you have to either love Liverpool or hate Liverpool. Obviously it was very easy for me to fall in love with the club and the people.

"It is a super special story. Could it have been more successful? Yes! With me? I don’t know. We did absolutely everything. I am very self-critical but I do not reflect on this in a critical way. I do not see where we could have done this, or that, and then this or that would not have happened. I am super happy with my time here.

"If you do not like it, who cares? It is really like that. We had really good times with super football moments, real development, tough moments, overcoming all of them. Okay, maybe not always in time, like last season probably. In the 2021 season we did when we qualified for the Champions League. I look back with a smile.

You recently said Scousers were the most passionate football fans, so what have you learned from the people of the city during your time here?

"I’m nine years living here so I’m massively biased. Massively biased. I said recently Scousers are the most passionate about football because that’s how I feel, but a few nights ago Dortmund (in the Champions League semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain) was a big reminder.

"They only had a little corner (for fans) and I don’t know why, I just thought ‘Oh my God, they squeezed them in there’. I have a lot of friends still there and you see footage of the celebrations and it means a lot. In England, it’s Scousers [who are the most passionate fans] but I was really, really lucky to experience the other ones as well. It is just what it means to the people. That’s so different as well. It means everything, absolutely everything.

"The only reason I gave this example and that I am leaving now I have got a bit softer but I felt really bad and guilty after the Everton game. At the beginning I had no clue what a derby means, you understand it but you don’t feel it. I learned that over the years.

"We lose that game on a Wednesday night, Manchester City are playing the next night, I said I am definitely not watching that and my son is saying ‘come on, let’s go for a beer’. So we went for a beer instead.

"We were sitting outside and didn’t want to go inside, it's not that I expected that people would push me through the room and say ‘you lost yesterday!’ But you don’t want to have these views when you go for a beer, people saying 'you better prepare the team for the next game' and these kind of things, and then people realised I was sitting outside. They all came over and I didn't know anybody so I was saying ‘yeah, yeah, I'm sorry for the result, we tried but it didn’t work out’ and they were saying: ‘No, don’t worry about it’.

"They were so nice, so thankful and that means everything, but in that moment it means nothing because it is just about the whole thing besides results means to all of us and we were all just so thankful we had that together.

What would say about a possible statue?

"A statue for me? Of course, I don’t need it. Do I need a key of the city? I am German, we don’t do that. When I was sitting there getting the freedom of the city, I had no clue what to expect and people come in with their fancy hats and the chains and it was one of the best experiences I ever had in my life and I didn’t expect that.

"When they did the speeches I had to get next to myself to think ‘they cannot be talking about you, it’s not possible’ and it was really great. The people do what they want to do. Do I think I need a statue? Definitely not. I am not sure what Bill Shankly or all the other former managers thought. They have another 40 years to think about a statue for me.

You will be spoken about in the same breath as Shankly in the future by Liverpool fans...

"The thing is, it’s that long ago I’m not sure that there are many people still alive that were really remember it and talk about it. It’s part of folklore but Bill Shankly didn’t do it alone. The people, the city, you couldn’t done what Bill did in each city in the world.

"You cannot do it in London where there are 25 clubs. If you went to that street you might support Crystal Palace or Fulham, that street you’re a bit closer to Chelsea or whatever. You are here and it’s red or blue. That’s how it is. This is the place you can do it.

"The way Bill understood it, and as far as I know about it, not that I’m an expert in it, because of the political way the people are coming from, you need someone that understands it is the power of unity, the power of togetherness, we give our all, we see what we get for it, we overcome obstacles and difficulties, and Bill was obviously the right man to do that.

"At that time, with the circumstances they had, they could bring in the players they needed and could keep them for as long as they needed them and that’s why they were incredibly successful.

"When I arrived here, people would probably describe it as darker times. It was 10 years since they won the Champions League, for other clubs they would still talk about it but for here it was too long ago, two years after they got to the Champions League final so they wanted to go back pretty much on the landscape. I knew the tricky situation of Liverpool, without knowing too much.

"I think two, three years before I think Ian Ayre called me up when I was at Dortmund and asked if I was interested. In that moment I thought, ‘Eh?’ Dortmund were flying, blah, blah, blah, maybe champions again and Liverpool? I thought: ‘Nah, no chance’.

But I didn’t want to leave at all so I was like ‘why did you call?’. Liverpool was not in a great place, it was not a place you go and say: ‘Yeah Liverpool is calling, yeah come on let's go’.

"That changed three years later. For me it was the number one choice, for whatever reason, it’s not really explainable. I just thought that is the one I want to have. What we did, together with the people, we restored the belief and the togetherness.

"People enjoy winning of course but fighting for it especially. It is part of our history here that we really get hit hard, punched hard and get up again. People probably enjoy that a little bit as well, it’s just different. ‘We take punches better than others and we go again’. It was not a plan but it is how people are here.

"The general view on life in Liverpool, for people like Tony Barrett (head of press), to mine is very similar. I’m ready to fight for the right things, do I think I deserve everything? No, it’s fine for others to have as well. I’m not a socialist but I come from there but I understand life like that. I fitted so well. I didn’t have to change a bit, that was the biggest blessing. I didn’t have to change a bit. Just be myself and go from there. That’s why it worked out so well, in the relationship with the people.

"I understand that from the outside point of view, people might see it like that but, as Bill probably did think, alone would have been impossible. From his boot room, the guys who supported him in that time they all took over, boom, boom, boom. They were all there before but it was all about Bill in the city. It’s all about me, so who spoke about Pep Lijnders?

"They spoke about Pep Lijnders when the book came out and we didn’t play well. And they said why did he write a book? Wow, are you all crazy? Now he goes out and will conquer the world and people will realise ‘ah!’. That’s always like that.

"For the outside world and what the outside world needs, they are easy for me. We have the same view on life and I don’t have to pretend to be someone else. I just can say what I think, the rest of the world doesn’t like it but Liverpool rather like it so we agree on most of the things. That’s how it is."