Liverpool’s recent Premier League title victory, which drew it level with Manchester United on 20 league titles, has resurfaced a once-overlooked prediction from Sir Alex Ferguson, the Old Trafford icon.
Ferguson long foresaw Jurgen Klopp turning Liverpool into a championship-caliber squad well before he steered them to their inaugural Premier League accolade in 2020. He pegged the German as the “perfect” individual to lead at Anfield, a prediction that resonates with a hint of foreboding today, considering the current composition of Arne Slot’s Liverpool line-up, either signed or developed under Klopp’s guidance.
To the surprise of many, Jamie Carragher revealed that Ferguson was among the scant voices outside of Anfield that had faith in Klopp restoring the league title after his arrival in 2015. At that point, Liverpool trailed the champions Chelsea by 26 points, a far cry from the near-victorious 2013/14 campaign.
Nevertheless, Klopp rapidly transformed Liverpool into a substantial threat domestically and on the European stage. He captured the Champions League in 2019 and ended Liverpool’s 30-year wait for a league title in 2020.
Carragher later penned in the Daily Telegraph: “Outside Anfield, there was only one high-profile figure in the game who tried to convince me Klopp could bring the title to Anfield.
“I should have listened to Sir Alex Ferguson. I will never forget meeting Sir Alex when I played in Michael Carrick’s testimonial in June, 2017. ‘You’ve got yourself a manager, there,’ Fergie told me.
“It was the look he gave me, which was most revealing, as he explained how impressed he had been with Klopp during Champions League coaching seminars… He felt, and exhibited, no inferiority complex, and Ferguson intuitively knew he was perfect for Liverpool.”
Despite not securing a second league title, Klopp kept Liverpool in the competitive fray, a fact that shook United’s stalwart Gary Neville. Speaking in 2022, Neville described the presence of Klopp and Pep Guardiola at their respective clubs as “scary”.
On The Overlap, he confessed: “The worry for the rest [of the Premier League] is, that I thought these two managers would be gone two or three seasons ago. I thought ‘they’re going to do four years, five years, and then they’ll go, that next challenge will come — Barcelona, Real Madrid, wherever the next challenge is’.
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“The problem is now they’ve both embedded themselves into these two clubs. They recognize that the league is the best it’s ever been, the rest of the leagues in Europe aren’t in a stronger position.
“The clubs that they’re at are giving them everything that they want and more, and they’re now going to be here for another three years, maybe four years. And that’s the scary thing.”
Ultimately, Klopp vacated his position two years after Neville’s remarks. Nevertheless, the legacy he left made way for Arne Slot’s promising start, building on Klopp’s final campaign where Liverpool gathered an impressive 82 points despite battling injuries and squad difficulties.
Liverpool.com says: Slot has become a member of an exclusive group as the 12th manager to claim a Premier League title and only the fifth to achieve this feat in his inaugural season in England. Although he has equalled Klopp’s title count, it is undeniable that the German laid the foundation, establishing a “scary” infrastructure that has enabled United’s rivals to maintain their competitive edge.
