Former Liverpool player says Klopp asked him to join his coaching team at Anfield

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Former Liverpool defender Kolo Toure has revealed that Jurgen Klopp asked him to stay on as a coach at Anfield.

Toure spent three years at Liverpool, leaving following the Europa League final defeat in 2016. But in a feature for liverpoolfc.com today, the Ivorian says Klopp actually offered him the chance to stay.

“I spoke to Jurgen and he told me my contract wasn’t going to be renewed – but he did, however, want me as a coach in his backroom team. That was massive for me,” Toure explained. “I think I was in Africa when he made the call, ‘Kolo, we want to keep you but I want you in my coaching staff.’ I told him I needed to think about it.

“Having the opportunity to work with him as a coach was immense – it was going to be fantastic for me. But at the same time, I was talking with Brendan at Celtic as well. Brendan was offering me one more year as a player. It was a hard decision to make, very hard.

“Liverpool was a great place for me. With the intensity of the game and my personality, it all fit really well. But ultimately, I wanted to play one more year and then just see what came after that.”

Toure declines Jurgen’s offer

In the end, Toure did join his former Reds boss Rodgers at Celtic. The Ivory Coast legend helping Brendan to another league title in Scotland.

After that, Toure joined Rodgers’ backroom team, before following him to Leicester City in 2019. That’s where Kolo remained until he took the step-up to being a first-team manager late last year.

Unfortunately though, football management showed just how brutal it can be, Toure sacked after just nine games in charge of Wigan Athletic.

Now without work, there is – in theory – an opportunity for Klopp and his old centre-back to work together once again. It will be interesting to see whether anything comes of that.

In the meantime, the 42-year-old continues to be highly thought of at Liverpool. It certainly isn’t the club he’s most associated with – he’ll always be known as an ‘invincible’ at Arsenal – but he made many friends during his three years on Merseyside.

It would have been great to have seen him on the touchline with Jurgen. But having earned his stripes as a coach elsewhere, maybe it’s still something that could happen.