Blaming the timing of Jurgen Klopp's resignation announcement for Liverpool's late-season collapse is ridiculous

Klopp made his resignation announcement on January 26 and nobody saw it coming. A pre-match press conference had been rescheduled without warning or explanation, but not a single club correspondent had even an inclination that the end might be near for one of Liverpool's greatest-ever managers.

On the contrary, after a difficult 2022-23 campaign, he appeared refreshed and revitalised by the challenge of constructing his next great team. The 'Liverpool Reloaded' project wasn't just progressing well; it was going better than anyone could have expected, with the Reds competing on four fronts.

However, in trying to explain a decision that devastated Liverpool fans, Klopp said that he was "running out of energy" and given his team is too now, it is now being argued that there is a connection between the two. It's pure rubbish, though.

Klopp explained at the time that his batteries were still fully charged, that he was still "absolutely fine" and fired up to finish with a flourish, clarifying his position by saying that he had simply come to the inevitable conclusion that he could not continue in such a demanding role forever.

He, thus, believed that it would be best bow out at the peak of his powers while he could still do the job to the best of his ability. There was no suggestion that his powers were starting to wane; only an admission that he didn't feel as if he'd be up for going again next season.

Consequently, he wanted to give the club as much time as possible to prepare for his departure and begin the difficult search for a successor.

Klopp also pointed out that he felt compelled to go public with the news in January as there was little chance of his imminent exit remaining a secret for long. In fact, he was surprised that the news hadn't already been leaked to the press, given he had informed his employers in November.

"In an ideal world, I wouldn't have said anything to anybody until the end of the season, win everything and then say goodbye. That’s not possible," he said. "In the world we are living in, it’s not possible to keep things like this secret...

"There are so many things which are influenced by it, especially personal situations. People from my staff need to know early – and especially the club needs to know early and needs to plan... You can do a lot of stuff with knowing it but not making it public, but the decisive things, a lot of things, you cannot do. That means the club needs time."

That rationale is now being questioned by the likes of Gabriel Agbonlahor, who makes his money dealing solely in reactions of the knee-jerk variety. "This season, the wheels coming off at Liverpool is down to Jurgen Klopp," the former Aston Villa forward, who never won a trophy during his playing days, told Razed.com. "Coming out and making the announcement so early in the season was the wrong decision."

It was Klopp's decision to make, though. This is a manager - and a human being - who has left an indelible mark on Liverpool, both the club and the city. He had more than earned the right to decide when and how he would walk away.

Secondly, the idea that Liverpool unravelled because of the timing of Klopp's announcement is ludicrous. Not a single player has suggested that giving the manager the ideal send-off became a burden or affected their player in any way, shape or form. There was no sudden effect on results either.

As former captain Phil Thompson pointed out in his column on Paddy Power "We had two months of wonderful football after he made his announcement at the end of January" - during which time an injury-ravaged Liverpool somehow managed to win the Carabao Cup with a team containing several academy graduates.

That Wembley win over Chelsea really was an extraordinary achievement in the circumstances, with an already weakened starting line-up - there was no Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dominik Szoboszlai, Mohamed Salah or Darwin Nunez - being rocked by the first-half withdrawal of Ryan Gravenberch, while Wataru Endo played on with a knock that resulted in him leaving the arena on crutches.

Klopp was accused of characteristic exaggeration when he labelled the 1-0 victory "the most special trophy" triumph of his career, but his joy and pride were perfectly understandable. Indeed, the scale of Liverpool's injury issues cannot not be suddenly - or conveniently - forgotten to construct a false narrative.

During a significant chunk of the second half of the season, Klopp had to make do with only 12 senior players. His defence was decimated during a significant chunk of that time and, at one point, he didn't even have an orthodox left-back to call on. Joe Gomez was, thus, asked to fill the void, just as he was when Liverpool found themselves without a defensive midfielder in February.

To make matters worse, even when certain star men returned from spells on the sidelines, they proved incapable of recapturing their best form, with Mohamed Salah's slump the most obvious - and costly - case in point.

In addition, the season-ending injury suffered by Joel Matip last September became increasingly costly the longer the campaign wore on, given Ibrahima Konate's clumsiness and Jarell Quansah's inexperience, while Diogo Jota's persistent problems robbed Liverpool of their most lethal finisher at a time when they needed him most, with the Portuguese predator's fellow forwards suffering from a collective crisis of confidence in front of goal.

If questions must be asked of Klopp's handling of his final season at the helm, then, they certainly shouldn't centre on the timing of his exit announcement. The use of certain key players in meaningless fixtures is far more deserving of scrutiny because "dumb" decisions were made, most notably the use of Salah, Andy Robertson, Szoboszlai, Endo and Nunez in a Europa League tie with Sparta Prague that was already over - three days before the FA Cup clash with United.

With the benefit of hindsight, Klopp may well conclude that Liverpool might have been better served by focusing solely on the Premier League and thus sparing certain players the Thursday-Sunday grind that comes with participation in the Europa League. Liverpool got less rest than all of their rivals because of a schedule that Klopp quite correctly called "crazy", so it was inevitable that they would end up exhausted.

It didn't feel that way, of course, up until March. Before that fateful trip to Old Trafford, anything appeared possible for Klopp and his players. Much had been made of his decision to step down, but Liverpool were still finding ways to win in spite of their lengthy injury list. They were constantly coming from behind to win, and Klopp was the reason why, making outstanding use of his squad with one impactful substitution after another.

As it transpired, it was all unsustainable. Liverpool could only over-achieve for so long. Injuries and fatigue eventually took a physical and mental toll on a team that nobody seriously thought would win the league when the season began. Back then, a trophy and a top-four finish would have been considered a successful campaign. It only feels like an anti-climax now because the perfect ending actually appeared possible just over a month ago.

If Klopp was guilty of anything, then, it was once again turning doubters into believers. Expectations were raised to a level that could never possibly be met - and he can hardly be blamed for that.