Michail Antonio hasn’t been slow to speak publicly about Liverpool this season, and he’s now claimed to have ‘heard’ that Jurgen Klopp was considering his departure from Anfield long before last Friday’s announcement.
The West Ham forward – who openly admitted that he doesn’t want the Reds to win the Premier League this year – told The Players Channel that he was privy to whispers of a potential exit by the 56-year-old during the 2022/23 campaign.
The Jamaica international said of Klopp: “To be fair, I heard in the grapevine last season he was thinking about leaving, but after what they did last year and what they are doing this year, I was very surprised to be fair that he has announced he is going.
“What I heard, and it might not be true, is that his family just want to go back home to be fair. That’s what the rumours were.”
Klopp himself attributed his main reason for leaving Liverpool at the end of the season to ‘running out of energy’, and after a near-unbroken 23 years in management, it’s quite understandable that he may wish to take a step back from the coalface.
He’s been on Merseyside for the best part of a decade, so it may well be true that his family is longing for a return to Germany, especially having become a grandfather last July.
It must also be noted that travel restrictions during the global pandemic prohibited him from attending his mother’s funeral three years ago, a circumstance which could only have made the bereavement even harder to bear.
Klopp has said that he felt an obligation rather than a desire to end his time as Liverpool manager once this season concludes, which illustrates how difficult a decision it must’ve been for him.
The Reds’ upward curve on the pitch can only have made that even tougher for the 56-year-old, but he wouldn’t have made that announcement without giving it extreme consideration. What we can say for certain is that he owes us absolutely nothing and will depart as one of the greatest figures in the club’s history.