Jurgen Klopp lifts lid on Man Utd snub and admits ‘I didn’t want to sign Pogba’ | Football | Sport

Jurgen Klopp has lifted the lid on why he snubbed the Manchester United job, admitting there were aspects of the talks he had with the Red Devils that left him feeling uneasy. The former Liverpool boss has confessed he was put off by certain elements of the United project and believed the timing simply wasn’t right for him.

Then at Borussia Dortmund, Klopp eventually rejected United before taking charge at Anfield, where he steered Liverpool to Premier League and Champions League glory. Throughout that spell, he watched his Reds eclipse their fierce rivals, though history could have taken a vastly different turn had he accepted the Old Trafford hotseat. He was lined up as David Moyes’s replacement after the club made their approach in 2014, before Klopp opted to stay in the Bundesliga.

Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast, Klopp disclosed he harboured doubts following discussions with the United hierarchy. “It’s difficult, we’re not in a private space but there are some reasons but the people in that conversation that I didn’t like,” he said.

“So, United was that big ‘we get all the players we want, we get him, we get him, we get him’ and I was sitting there like ‘huh?’ It was not my project, it didn’t feel like my project, it was the wrong time but on top of that, it was not my project.

“I didn’t want to bring back [Paul] Pogba, Pogba is a sensational player my god, but these things don’t work usually. Or Cristiano [Ronaldo] my god we all know he’s the best player in the world together with [Lionel] Messi.

“Bringing him back never helps, in that time in 2013, it was not about Cristiano, maybe Paul I’m not sure but the idea was, ‘we bring the best players together then let’s go’.

“Not at all [about the football] then I sat there like it wasn’t for me. Then the pure football project comes up and a sensational talk to Mike Gordon [Fenway Sports Group president] that’s really important as well.

“He’s the owner but John [Henry] and Tom [Werner], after the talk I wanted to be Mike’s friend, he was such a nice guy. After that, it was pretty special.”

Explaining his perspective on Manchester United‘s struggles, the 58 year old added: “I haven’t thought for a second since joining Liverpool what United did right or wrong.

“I went to Liverpool and in that moment you became our opponent, not my enemy, but an important opponent, one that is much more fun to beat.

“Always in football, like in life, you only find a solution now knowing you have two day later another problem. There’s no long term, ‘we have to deal with that for another two day then we can sort it’.

“We would have to deal with it for a year or two then we can make a big step, in a football case, contracts are running out, player goes anyway, sell him but because you’re in such a rush all the time just because you have to win the next game.

“For United, in the years when they were not happy they would buy the time, Jose coming second, no one was happy. Remember that? In that time second was not good enough and now you’re not even close to that but that’s not a Man United story, it’s a football story.

“You win, you’re the greatest, you lose, you know nothing about the game, you draw, you’re boring, it’s only your idea and where you want to go. Everything in life is about development, you are not the same as you were 10 years ago, it means the time between then and now counts.

“I have to plan my own life, medium and long-term, and the future of a football club. A footballer can score five goals but will not sort the problem. I don’t know the United problems but Liverpool was the same, on the day we sold Phil Coutinho, that’s not the day I thought, ‘oh, good we have the money’ I lost a player I wanted to work with for the next 10 years.

“We invested it smartly that’s true but it’s not we found the position and sorted it, we had to sort something differently, we found two players in Alisson and [Virgil] Van Dijk, that was for the future to go from there and that’s the difference I think.”