How it feels to be let go by Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool – according to Roberto Firmino
Nov 9, 2023
Roberto Firmino’s autobiography, Si Senor, which was published today (Thursday), is for the most part a gentle stroll through his good times at Liverpool, in which he thanks their manager Jurgen Klopp almost as regularly as God for his good fortune.
But the mood changes in its final chapters, covering the time when his contract at Anfield was running out.
Despite Liverpool coming close to winning the quadruple (Premier League title, FA Cup, Carabao Cup and Champions League) in his second to last season at the club, the former Brazil international describes that 2021-22 campaign as the worst of his life due to injuries (foot, muscle and hamstring), which made him feel disconnected from the club’s ambitions.
A collective regret in Paris followed — Liverpool lost 1-0 to Real Madrid in the Champions League final, where Firmino was introduced in the 77th minute.
The now 32-year-old re-emphasises his admiration of Klopp as the best manager he has ever played for, but the lack of minutes in that final was the moment he “felt most disappointed” in the German. Without elaborating further, Firmino thought Klopp’s decisions that night “made things easier” for Madrid.
The book tells how he then began his eighth and final year at Anfield confident of a new deal, but as the months passed, with communication between his representatives and the club “muddled” and “slow”, Firmino began to feel marginalised.
His view is that Klopp’s greatest strength was managing squad expectations — keeping the substitutes engaged. Yet suddenly, Firmino says, he was given no explanation about his lack of playing time and he started to feel the previous freedom to discuss his concerns with his manager was no longer there.
“The boss was avoiding me,” he writes as 2023 begins. He describes a period of anguish for himself and his family due to the uncertainty around his future. “Encouraged by God”, Firmino says he decided to leave before the club decided it for him.
Firmino describes his final year as “confused and contradictory”. Despite a good send-off in his final game at Anfield, the striker felt “sidelined” by a club he didn’t want to leave. Contrary to some claims, an offer of better money in Saudi Arabia only came after his Liverpool farewell.
Firmino gets a guard of honour for his final game at Anfield (John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
The decision to release a book and cover this episode in such detail is unusual for a player who rarely spoke publicly during his time on Merseyside and who would regularly stroll through Anfield’s media mixed zone, even after a scintillating performance, either ignoring journalists’ attempts to engage or cheerfully muttering: “English, not good…”
It should also be said that this book is very much Firmino’s account of what happened in his final months at Anfield.
Liverpool declined to comment when asked by The Athletic this week if they wished to offer their version of events.
Yet Firmino is not alone in suggesting that Klopp can, at best, be a little cold with players who are on their way out. The Brazilian was one of six long-serving senior players to leave the club over this year’s summer and several expressed surprise at how their exits were handled.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain revealed to The Athletic last month that nobody at the club warned him his contract – which expired on June 30 – was not going to get renewed until three days before the final home game of last season, when he was told a statement was going to appear on the club’s website announcing his release.
The previous silence had indicated to the England midfielder that this development was coming, but he’d have preferred it if someone had been more up front. “You… expect certain things to be told — whether it’s good, bad,” said Oxlade-Chamberlain, who moved on to Besiktas in Turkey as a free agent. “The lack of communication was… a bit surprising.”
Jordan Henderson’s situation was different — he still had a year left on his contract. Around the same time the futures of Firmino and Oxlade-Chamberlain were decided, he felt he was still a part of Klopp’s plans.
When an offer came from Saudi Arabian club Al Ettifaq at the start of pre-season training, the then Liverpool captain went to Klopp and was informed his role at the club was not going to be as prominent. In his own interview with The Athletic, Henderson claimed that “at no point did I feel wanted, by the club or anyone, to stay”.
Henderson as title-winning Liverpool skipper and Firmino as the Brazilian to have scored the most goals in the Premier League are legendary figures. Less so, Leighton Clarkson, who played just three cup and European games for Liverpool across two seasons, having emerged from the academy system and trained with the first team for several years.
Clarkson had time left on his contract, too, but he joined Scottish club Aberdeen, where he’d enjoyed a productive 2022-23 season on loan, this summer partly because of a lack of contact from the first-team setup at Liverpool during his year in the Scottish Premiership. “Since I came up to Aberdeen, I didn’t really hear much from any of them,” the now 22-year-old told The Athletic in June. “That’s when I knew I needed to move on.”
These stories strike against the perception that Klopp is always a great communicator.
So, how to explain it? Maybe the manager did not really know for certain himself. Listen to those who have played for him and they tend to agree that he achieves buy-in because he makes people truly believe in what he’s saying. Lose that and he loses authority.
Klopp said publicly he wanted to keep Firmino and James Milner but did not have the power to offer contracts. He had been desperate to squeeze every last ounce of energy from each one of these players and the quadruple they nearly achieved in 2022 suggested Liverpool were heading in the right direction.
But Firmino stresses in his book that it was only as the ensuing season progressed that it became obvious the team needed a bigger rebuild than perhaps Klopp had previously imagined.
In 2021-22, Klopp had a rammed fixture list; with his side reaching three finals and taking the title race to the last round of fixtures, he was able to promise players such as Firmino starts in big games, taking the edge off any frustrations. But last term, Liverpool were almost out of the running in every competition by the middle of February.
This was new terrain for Klopp despite his vast experience. At each of his previous clubs, he was used to having players pulled away from him; now he was the one doing the culling.
On top of this, formulating any financial or sporting strategy was a challenge. Sporting director Julian Ward unexpectedly left (he is yet to be permanently replaced) and the club’s American owners, Fenway Sports Group, contemplated selling up.
But this is the harsh reality of football: those who are forced to leave elite surroundings have a knack for getting hurt by the experience.
Firmino, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Henderson and Clarkson cannot pretend they dreamt of playing in Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Scotland at this point in their careers. And no Liverpool fan would seriously claim to be disappointed that those players – plus Naby Keita and Fabinho, the other major summer departures from Anfield – have been replaced by Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Ryan Gravenberch and Wataru Endo.
Klopp would not be the first manager to upset a player who has served him well.
The most obvious modern-enough comparison is Sir Alex Ferguson, whose attempts to shape several Manchester United teams led to the departures of heroes including Roy Keane, Jaap Stam and Ruud van Nistelrooy.
Klopp has been with Liverpool since 2015 building several new teams (Clive Rose/Getty Images)
The volatile manner of each of those separations had a bearing on the way these players feel about their former manager, even decades later.
Neither is it unheard of at Liverpool.
Like Klopp today, Bill Shankly was thought of as a supreme communicator and motivator, whose work lifted the club into the top flight in 1962 and then to league titles in 1964 and 1966, either side of a first FA Cup.
Shankly would have to wait seven seasons before he delivered another trophy, though. The team needed breaking up before he was willing to do it and it took a muddy FA Cup defeat to second-tier Watford in 1970 to make him realise things needed to change.
That first great side was duly dismantled, with one of the most notable casualties being the tenacious striker Ian St John.
In 1961, St John had been a club-record signing. He spoke about Shankly like a father, and to Shankly, St John seemed like a son. But the relationship changed when he had to manage the player’s departure.
When St John learned he was dropped for a game against Newcastle United by looking at the team sheet, he felt let down. Shankly hadn’t had the courage to speak to him first.
St John said he knew his time was up when he went to pick up part of his Christmas bonus — a turkey which was only available to the “first team”, which suddenly did not involve him. When he confronted Shankly, he asked why he was only getting a “budgie”.
In his autobiography, St John wrote about the “conflicting emotions that rise to the surface” when he thought about Shankly: “I’m torn between love and hate, admiration and sometimes at least a little anger and disillusionment.”
Yet Shankly’s decision to let his No 9 go was ultimately the right one. A new raft of players came, sweeping Liverpool to more successes at home and in Europe in the years that followed.
The indications are the same thing might happen at Klopp’s Liverpool; and if it does, nobody will really care how they got there.
