"Right up there amongst the very best" - Steven Gerrard wants Liverpool to felicitate exit-bound Jurgen Klopp with a statue
Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard has urged the club to honor outgoing manager Jurgen Klopp with a statue. The German is set to manage his last game for the Reds with their upcoming Premier League clash against Wolverhampton Wanderers on May 19.
Gerrard said on Sky Sports:
“I hope to god there's a statue and I hope it's nearly ready because I think he deserves that stature at the club. You mention all the managers that have delivered huge prizes at Liverpool, he is right up there amongst the very best.”
Klopp announced back in January that the 2023-24 season would be his last campaign with Liverpool. He replaced Brendan Rodgers as boss in October 2015, overseeing a transition that eventually made the side into a dominant force domestically as well as in Europe.
In his tenure, the Merseysiders won their first league title in 30 years in an enthralling back-and-forth title race with Manchester City in the 2019-20 season. They also enjoyed success on the continental stage, winning the UEFA Champions League once and reaching the final two other times in his tenure.
Liverpool were in the title race this season as well with Arsenal and City but a late run of poor form has seen them slip out. They lifted the Carabao Cup with a win in the final over Chelsea but crashed out of the Europa League, losing to Serie A side Atalanta.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp provides opinion on VAR ahead of pivotal vote
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp suggested that he would be in favor of scrapping the Video Assistant Referee from the subsequent season. The German claimed that while the technology in itself was useful, it wasn't being put to use in the right manner.
He said (via the BBC):
"I don't think they're [the club] voting against VAR, I think they'll vote about how it gets used, because that's definitely not right.
"In the way they do it, I would vote against it, because these people are not able to use it properly."
Premier League clubs are set to make a huge decision on the future of VAR in the annual meeting of the league on June 6. This comes after a motion was brought up by Wolves, citing multiple reasons in the interest of the spirit of the game, to remove it from the sport.
Since its introduction in 2019, VAR has had quite a few controversial moments. The Merseysiders were involved in one of the most egregious errors in recent memory. The decision to disallow Luis Diaz's goal in their 2-1 loss to Tottenham Hotspur earlier this season was deemed 'a significant error'.