OLIVER HOLT: Jurgen Klopp put Liverpool back on its pedestal and fully reformed the club... like Merseyside giants Bill Shankly and Kenny Dalglish, he'll forever be remembered as a king of the city

Jurgen Klopp has announced he will leave Liverpool at the end of the seasonA sad crestfallen manager saying goodbye. This is seismic moment for Liverpool - It's All Kicking Off

Fifty years ago next summer, a young Granada TV reporter called Tony Wilson walked the streets of Liverpool with his microphone, breaking shocking news to men, women and children. The expressions on their faces made it clear it was news that they desperately did not want to hear.

Wilson, who went on to become a figure of great cultural significance in the north west as the co-founder of Factory Records, had come straight from Anfield where the Liverpool chairman John Smith had held a press conference to tell the world Bill Shankly had retired.

Shankly was a god on Merseyside, the father of the modern club, a manager who had taken Liverpool from the Second Division to the league title and FA Cup glories, a demagogue, a leader, a man who craved fraternity with the fans, a man with many of the qualities replicated now in Jurgen Klopp.

The footage shows Wilson standing with some supporters on a street corner near Lime Street Station on July 12, 1974, telling them that Shankly had quit. The camera captures the looks of disbelief on their faces. Another interview shows Wilson talking to a lad of maybe 12 or 13.

‘You’re having me on, aren’t you?’, the lad says to Wilson, accusingly.

Jurgen Klopp announced on Friday that he will be leaving Liverpool at the end of the season

Klopp rebuilt Liverpool and delivered the club’s first Premier League title during the Covid impacted season

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‘No, I’m not having you on. I’ve just been to Anfield, honest.’

‘Who said?’ the kid asks, grasping for hope that someone might have made it up, looking as if he might be about to cry.

‘He said,’ Wilson tells him. ‘He just announced it at lunchtime today and the board were with him.’

The boy closes his eyes, as the reality starts to dawn on him. So it was true. The man who meant everything to Liverpool fans, the man who built the club, was leaving them. Making the decision, Shankly said later, was ‘like going to the electric chair’.

Klopp’s resignation creates similar feelings to how fans felt when the great Bill Shankly resigned

It was the same when Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool’s greatest hero, announced his resignation in February 1991 after the stress and the pain of the Hillsborough Tragedy and its aftermath, his sense of duty to the victims and their families, layered on top of the normal pressures of managing a football club, overwhelmed him.

I spoke to a fervent Liverpool supporter on Friday, a supporter who was a child in 1991, and he said he ran home from school in tears when he was told that King Kenny had resigned. Maybe Dalglish, maybe the stature of the man, had been papering over the cracks at Liverpool for a while by then, but it took the club a long time to recover.

And it was the same on Friday. The method of delivery was different. Klopp staring into a camera at the Liverpool training ground, delivering an emotional, visceral speech addressed directly to unsuspecting supporters which notified them of his impending resignation. Just as with Shankly and Dalglish, no one saw it coming. No one was prepared. No one quite knew what to say.

On Merseyside, men like Shankly, Dalglish and Klopp are the closest thing the city has to a royal lineage. These men are giants of their region. They might not wear crowns but that does not mean they are not kings.

Shankly previously resigned as Liverpool boss in 1974 months after leading the club to the FA Cup

Kenny Dalglish resigned as Liverpool manager in February 1991 after the stress and the pain of the Hillsborough Tragedy and its aftermath

Shankly built the club, Dalglish cherished it and took the trauma of Hillsborough on his own shoulders, and Klopp rebuilt it. In 2020, against all the odds, he led Liverpool to their first league title for 30 years.

Klopp has put the club back on its pedestal. Or its perch, if you prefer. He restored its pride and its purpose after so long being bested by Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United and relegated by the rise of Chelsea and Manchester City.

Liverpool is a city that has been forced to the margins of English life by the Establishment and so men like Klopp, who instinctively feel the pulse of the place, who identify with its ostracization, who harness its banishment and who build something that is the envy of the rest of the country, are more than just football coaches in Liverpool.

They are not just leaders because that suggests they have somehow become part of the Establishment that shuns them. They are rebel leaders and they carry the romance of rebel leaders. They are heroes of a counter-culture. Klopp fits into that lineage perfectly. There is something about him that can never be tamed.

He is a figurehead and a symbol of pride. He led Liverpool out of a wilderness populated by also-rans and nearly men, a wilderness when the city seemed to have lost both its musical and its footballing pre-eminence, and he took the club back to the very top, not just domestically but in Europe, too. He made them, once more, the best team in the world.

He is a figurehead and a symbol of pride. He led Liverpool out of a wilderness populated by also-rans and nearly men, a wilderness when the city seemed to have lost both its musical and its footballing pre-eminence, and he took the club back to the very top, not just domestically but in Europe, too. He made them, once more, the best team in the world.

Klopp has put the club back on its pedestal after delivering success in England and across Europe

The German will leave Liverpool as a king of the city and following his success will be no easy task

He has become interwoven with Liverpool’s greatest figures. Not just its footballing giants but its favourite musical sons, too. There is a line that runs from The Beatles to the heavy metal football of Klopp, summed up to the tune of I Feel Fine.

‘I’m so glad that Jurgen is a Red,’ Liverpool’s hymn of adoration to Klopp goes. ‘I’m so glad he delivered what he said. Jurgen said to me, you know, we’ll win the Premier League you know, he said so. I’m in love with him and I feel fine.’

He was the gold standard. Klopp and Pep Guardiola are the Ferguson and Wenger of this era, rivals whose legend is burnished by their rivalry. Guardiola has been the more successful coach in terms of the number of Premier League titles he has won but no one in Liverpool would swap him for Klopp.

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He has, inadvertently, been camouflage for the American owners at Liverpool, too. The Fenway Sports Group are beneficent owners compared to the Glazers at Old Trafford but they have erred in their time.

And yet when they were one of the six clubs to join up for the ill-fated European Super League, part of the reason they were so swiftly forgiven was because of Klopp. Everybody loves Klopp. No one could be angry with the club for too long with him at the helm.

Part of the magic of Klopp has been that he punched above his weight. He over-achieved. Sure, he spent plenty of money, but Liverpool rank ninth among English sides in their net transfer spend over the last five years. The reality is that Liverpool are an underdog beside the nation state wealth of City and Klopp has made them roar.

The problem Liverpool face now is replacing him. How do you replace an icon? How do you replace a man who has become so much more than a football coach to the red half of the city? How do you find someone with his intensity? How do you find someone with the ability to take the fight to City and Real Madrid without their resources?

They will try, of course. And there are outstanding candidates out there, among them Xabi Alonso and Roberto de Zerbi, both brilliant, innovative coaches with the wit and principle to try, at least, to take up the reins when Klopp relinquishes them.

Any successor will have an advantage over those who followed Ferguson at Old Trafford, too: Klopp appears to be leaving Liverpool in rude health, another reason why his resignation on Friday morning came as such a shock.

Klopp runs on emotion. He runs on intensity. And in the weeks and months ahead, his city will do everything it can ensure that his leaving of Liverpool is accompanied by a roar of triumph

Many expected him to leave last season, when it appeared he was running out of energy. Many wondered openly whether he would have the appetite to rebuild the great side that reached three Champions League finals and engaged in that titanic domestic rivalry with City.

But he has rebuilt them. He has taken them to a point where they are ready to challenge for the biggest honours again. He has created a new, exciting, young, vibrant team that sits proudly at the top of the league.

And so, even if his impending departure will sow uncertainty, even if it is likely to redouble speculation about the future of Mo Salah, in particular, it may also stoke the emotions of a city and a club to make one final push for Klopp, to win this one for him.

Klopp runs on emotion. He runs on intensity. And in the weeks and months ahead, his city will do everything it can ensure that his leaving of Liverpool is accompanied by a great roar of triumph.