Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders has revealed that Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta tried to poach him away from and convince him to move to .
Arteta took his first step into first-team management in 2019, swapping the assistant role he held under at for the dugout at the Emirates, where he had been club captain during the latter days of Arsene Wenger’s time in charge.
When the Spaniard replaced Unai Emery and was assembling his backroom team, his first port of call was Lijnders, whom he had met while the pair were completing their coaching badges together on a UEFA course.
‘Mikel Arteta had asked me to be his assistant manager when he was preparing for his new step into management,’ Lijnders wrote in his new booked Intensity, offering a behind-the-scenes look at preparation involved in the Reds’ 2021/22 campaign.
‘We were together years earlier on the Pro Licence course, [though] his request came out of nothing. Mikel had said he felt: “There was just a difference playing Liverpool before and after you came in”.
‘This was the biggest compliment I ever got from somebody, I think, but I politely said no to him.’
Lijnders first joined the Reds in 2014 under previous manager Brendan Rodgers, having spent the prior eight years working for FC Porto. Originally employed as first-team coach, he was promoted after Klopp’s previous assistant Zeljko Buvac left the club, becoming assistant manager alongside Peter Krawietz.
The Dutchman left Anfield in January 2018 in order to become manager at NEC Nijmegen in the second division in his homeland, but was sacked six months later after failing to earn promotion to the Eredivisie.
Lijnders immediately returned to Klopp’s team and has subsequently helped the club to win the UEFA Champions League, Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup, Premier League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup.
The 39-year-old is among the favourites to replace Klopp as manager when the German leaves the club.
, .
, and .
