Jurgen Klopp's former assistant sacked after just seven months as Red Bull Salzburg confirm Pepijn Lijnders exit before ex-Liverpool boss takes on role at company

Lijnders, who left Liverpool along with Klopp at the end of the 2023-24 season, joined Red Bull Salzburg in May 2024. His journey, however, was cut short after the club started the 2024-25 campaign on a disappointing note. After the first 16 league games, Salzburg find themselves fifth in the Austrian Bundesliga with just seven wins. In the Champions League, they are currently placed 32nd after their latest 3-0 loss to Paris Saint-Germain and on the brink of elimination from Europe.

On the sacking of their manager, club CEO Stephan Reiter and managing director of sports, Rouven Schroder released a joint statement which read: "We began recently to analyse, as planned, what has unfortunately not been a satisfactory season so far. It was clear to see that in many of our matches we have been far short of our own requirements and aims.

"We have therefore become convinced that our team needs a new impulse under new management, even if we continued to hope for a turnaround until the end. We would like to thank Pep for his work. He put a lot of effort and passion into it and has provided important momentum for our further development. We are now very intensively looking for a new coach and will communicate as soon as a decision is made. We clearly want to start training again on 3 January 2025 with our new coach in place.

Lijnders began his coaching journey as assistant to Klopp in 2015 at Liverpool and stayed until January 2018 when he received his first senior managerial offer to coach Dutch second division side NEC. The stint, however, ended after just six months as he failed to lead the club to promotion to the Eredivisie in the 2017-18 season leading to his sacking. He rejoined Klopp's coaching ahead of the 2018-19 campaign.

Lijnders was set to be reunited with Klopp as the German manager will take over as head of global soccer at Red Bull, but has now been denied the chance to work with his old boss again. Their next fixture will be against Real Madrid on January 22 in the Champions League.