6 months ago
121 Jurgen Klopp will leave Liverpool this weekend, and it’s fair to say he’s overseen a lot of change at Anfield.
Indeed, in his nine year spell at the club, Klopp has turned the Reds inside out, changing the personnel, the mentality and the style of play.
Klopp transformed Liverpool during his time at the club, and speaking to The Times, the German has been looking back on the squad that he inherited.
Klopp said that, with all due respect, Liverpool’s backline when he arrived was simply too slow, naming Kolo Toure as a player who wasn’t quick enough to play the way he wanted to.
Kolo Toure was too slow
Klopp spoke about Toure and his lack of speed.
“Phil Coutinho – that is good. The last line, no offence to the boys, but a bit too slow to play a high line with Kolo Tore and the other fella [Mamadou Sakho]! But the quality was there, it was just not for the way you wanted to play,” Klopp said.
“We played in Sion on a frozen pitch. I learned a day before that we had Brad Smith and he stood right next to me in training and it was too embarrassing to ask him who he was.”
Kolo Toure would’ve been ideal for Klopp in his prime
In his prime, Kolo Toure would actually have been a brilliant defender for a Jurgen Klopp team.
The Ivorian, during his time at Arsenal and Man City, as a quick player who was very good on the ball, but, sadly, by the time Klopp arrived at Liverpool, Toure was almost 35 years old and his legs were going.
Ultimately, Toure was released at the end of Klopp’s first season and within another 12 months he was retired from the game altogether after struggling to make much of an impact at Celtic.
