Klopp: Liverpool ´not even halfway´ towards realising potential

Jurgen Klopp believes Champions League winners Liverpool are yet to fulfil even half of their potential as the German embarks on the next phase of his long-term plan.

Reds boss Klopp, 52, agreed a two-year contract extension on Friday, tying him to the club until 2024.

The German has had a galvanising effect since taking charge just over four years ago and looks destined to deliver the Premier League leaders their first top-flight title in 30 years.

Liverpool are eight points clear at the summit, have the European Cup in their possession and will only keep on improving, according to their charismatic manager.

“We don’t feel we are close [to] the end,” Klopp told his club’s website after inking the new deal.

“We feel rather we are, maximum, not even halfway where we want to be.”

It’s been a special 2019…roll on 2020 and beyond!   pic.twitter.com/fKhkJuohFH

— Liverpool FC (@LFC) December 13, 2019

He continued: “We don’t think that we are only close to our 100 per cent but we try to come closer and closer and closer.

“That’s what we said after the Champions League final, after the first one, after the second one: this is not the final chapter for this team, there are a lot more to write and we want to be really influential in that.

“We don’t know where it will lead us to, but in this moment… I don’t know the teams before I came in, but it’s one of the teams who are most committed to this club and it’s really, really nice to be part of that.”

Klopp’s assistants Peter Krawietz and Pepijn Lijnders have also committed to Liverpool until 2024.

The former Borussia Dortmund boss said negotiations over his future would not have advanced without guarantees for Krawietz and Lijnders.

“Without an agreement from the boys, nothing would have happened,” he said.

“That’s how it is. It was always like this in my life, that I said first and foremost the assistants have to be happy and then we can talk. That was no different here.”