LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – Pep Lijnders, the long-serving assistant boss at Liverpool, is poised to leave the club at the end of the season and pursue a career as a manager. Despite not being a contender to take over from Jurgen Klopp, Lijnders believes the time is right for him to move on and start a new chapter in his professional journey.
“I really believe that it’s a natural progression,” Lijnders said in an interview with Liverpoolfc.com. “Probably in a few months I will sit down with my manager… then I will see what kind of options I have, which club really wants me and in that moment I will make a decision.”
The 41-year-old Dutchman initially joined Liverpool as an under-16s coach in 2014 before being promoted to the first-team staff the following year. Despite leaving for a short spell in charge of NEC Nijmegen in his homeland, Lijnders returned to Merseyside five months later after Klopp offered him the assistant manager’s job.
Lijnders expressed his gratitude to the club, stating, “I owe this club everything. They don’t owe me anything. I always said I will finish with Jurgen — I will not assist anyone else, that’s the moment I will go and manage… It’s not easy leaving such a club.”
The decision to leave was made with the intention of leaving the club with a squad full of hunger, talent, and leadership, so that they can continue to be successful in the coming years. Lijnders described their approach as making it ‘The Last Dance’, a proper ending for the project that he and Klopp started.
As Lijnders prepares to depart, he looks forward to upcoming discussions and potential opportunities for him to take the next step in his career as a manager, outside of his current role as an assistant boss at Liverpool.