Manchester United legend Gary Neville has told Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp that he is the glue that keeps the club together as the FSG owners are immensely unpopular with the fans.
The Sky Sports pundit and former United defender predicts that it would not be long before Liverpool fans lose patience with the owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) after Jurgen Klopp’s departure from Anfield. Neville forecasts that the Reds will crumble due to insufficient funds being pumped into the club by the American owners.
The United legend is inclined to believe that Klopp’s departure will be the beginning of the end of an Anfield era which the club’s FSG owners will not be able to recover from as he believes Reds fans will not be happy in the following years after the German has left the Merseyside giants.
Klopp has almost singlehandedly overseen the massively successful transformation of Liverpool from vying for potential top-four positions to being major contenders for the Premier League title with bitter rivals Manchester City since his arrival in 2017. His Midas touch manifested itself when he first struck gold by landing the Champions League trophy when they emerged victors over Tottenham.
The former Borussia Dortmund boss then cranked up the action another clear notch by winning the Reds their first-ever Premier League title and their first league trophy, which had eluded them for 30 years. Liverpool have since successfully filled the power vacuum despite spending less than their rivals in the transfer market.
However, Neville, speaking on The Overlap, believes all that is expected to change radically when Klopp finally bids adieu as Anfield’s American owners have benefited greatly from his brilliance in not needing to invest heavily in players and he reckons that the fans will quickly turn on the Americans when their league positions start getting wobbly without the astute German’s savvy and guidance.
Reflecting on the situation at Chelsea, Neville said: “There is a big moment that has come off the back of Roman Abramovich, I think it will be a lot harder to get into English football in the future. I think fans will have a higher hurdle in terms of what they expect from their owners. Liverpool, at this moment in time, the fans are quiet because of the fact they have a brilliant manager and a brilliant team.
“But that will change the minute that Klopp goes and they start going down and the money that they are spending takes them to where they probably should be which is fourth or fifth.
“What Klopp is doing at Liverpool is absolutely exceptional. He is punching so far above his weight it is untrue with that club. He’s a genius of a manager, he absolutely is.
“And once he leaves, and that could be four or five years, and the club are spending the same level of money, there will be a correction. Liverpool fans will not be happy with their owners because they want that money at the level of Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea.”
FSG, who are under the helmsmanship of John Henry, also own the Boston Red Sox, which is where most of their investments are channeled. To exacerbate matters, the group are already fast losing the trust of fans after the failed European Super League bid, which had been put together by a series of football moguls, with Henry being key among them.