Pep Lijnders gives firm response when asked if he’d return to Liverpool as a future Reds boss
Pep Lijnders will leave Liverpool at the end of this season to become the new head coach of Red Bull Salzburg, although the long-time assistant to Jurgen Klopp hasn’t dismissed the possibility of returning to Anfield in the future.
The 41-year-old will depart along with his boss after next Sunday’s final game of the season at home to Wolves, having been involved with the Reds for the past decade apart from a four-month spell at NEC Nijmegen in 2018, and he’s declared that his family are now ‘proper Scousers‘.
When quizzed about the prospect of come back to the Merseyside club further down the line, he replied (via The Mirror): “Yeah, truly and from the bottom of my heart, I just hope that our paths cross again in the future – that would be absolutely unbelievable.”
That spell at NEC aside, Lijnders has actually been at Liverpool even longer than Klopp, having remained at the club after the dismissal of his former boss Brendan Rodgers in 2015, so he’s bound to have very strong ties to the city after spending almost a full decade there.
Having worked under one of the best managers in world football for nearly a decade, the 41-year-old is bound to have absorbed so many invaluable nuggets of advice on how to become a successful head coach in his own right, and Salzburg should provide an intriguing challenge.
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The Red Bull-owned club have won the last 10 Austrian league titles and become regular participants in the Champions League group stage, so maintaining those standards will be the minimum that’s expected of the Dutchman from the start of next season.
Liverpool fans are likely to pay close attention to his progess on the continent and, if he proves to be a success with Salzburg, who’s to say that he won’t come back to Anfield further down the line and try to emulate what Klopp has done with the Reds?
He still has much to prove as a manager before that prospect ever becomes viable, but we’ve every confidence that Lijnders can thrive at the Red Bull Arena.
READ MORE: The evolution of Liverpool’s starting XI under Jurgen Klopp
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