Neil Atkinson, "Transformer: Klopp, the Revolution of a Club and Culture" (Canongate, 2024)
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Welcome to the new Books Network.

Welcome to New Books in Critical Theory. It's a podcast that's part of the New Books Network. On this episode, I'm talking to Neil Atkinson about Transformer, Klopp,

the revolution of a club and culture. So welcome to the podcast. Hello, how are we? I am good. How are you? Very well indeed. This is an incredibly great book. It's an incredibly ambitious book. It tells the story of the football club. It's got reflections on the city, its culture, reflections on the game.

reflections on kind of social, cultural history. But also it's a very personal book, I think, and a very personal story. And that's where I want to start with, really. I wonder if you could kind of introduce yourself and a little bit maybe about the Anfield Rap, which are obviously kind of central to the book. Yeah, I mean, I'm Neil Atkinson, wrote the book. And since 2011, I've been hosting the Anfield Rap.

since sort of approximately 2015, the Anfield rap firstly started off doing one podcast a week and shifted into two, one of which was with Radio City Talk, going out live across Liverpool City Centre, which was really good, really important. Live radio is the best thing you can ever do. I absolutely adore it at every opportunity. And then in about sort of 2015, we tried something that didn't really work, which is fine, that happens. And then we decided that the plan was to give them more podcasts.

So since about 2016, I've been running the Anfield Wrap as sort of a business entity that employs people and is able to some years turn a profit and some years not. And then from there, we've sort of added video arms and now we've got a team of 13 who work out of a very nice office in Liverpool City Centre, which we're really pleased and lucky to have. And there's everything else that we do that sort of

revolves around it in a bit of a civic way, which I touch on a lot in the book. And then the flip side of that is prior to or as part of all of this, I was trying to write for screen, whether for television or for cinema, for an extended period leading up to the start of the Anfield Wrap and actually co-wrote and co-produced a feature film called Native that was shot in 2014.

And amongst all that, I had a number of different sorts of jobs working through in Liverpool and various offices, but ended up landing in shipping for an extended period of time, which I actually really enjoyed and which I've always thought was quite an important and formative thing to have done whilst going through. So yeah, that was, you know, all of that. And then another thing that sort of went on for about 2007, 8, is I was one of the founding members of Spirits of Shankly and was part of that process when that was getting off the ground to start with before stepping down and

just moving away in about around the autumn of around 2008 I mean a lot of that is really important in the book and that kind of

personal journey and you've touched on stuff like the civic role of both the Anfield Raph and the club and I guess an interesting question is what inspired you to write a book because like obviously this people who might know you already this is your third book so yes but there's an Anfield Raph book as well that was written about the um

I think it's about the league winning season. Right, right, right. Oh, no, it's the Champions League winning season, sorry, 2018-19, which took some of the writing I'd done throughout that year and repurposed it a little bit and went from there and other people's as well. So we were all in together on that. I wrote a book about the 2013-14 season with John Gibbons and other people, a number of other people who contributed to

bits and pieces called Maker's Dream and a book called Red Letters with an American author Michael McCamber which he's written an excellent well a lot of excellent books but one in particular I think is terrific called America's Game about the formation of the NFL and me and Michael corresponded over the course of the 2019-20 season the league winning season about everything that was going on including Covid

Michael comes up a couple of times in the book and Michael was also really useful and a really good support through the process of writing it. In terms of writing it, I mean, one of the things is originally, like, I was kicking it around with an agent,

Luxton who I was put in touch with as someone who you'll like him you'll get on with him he's really good and all of that transpired to be the case in 2022 and the original idea was to write about sort of some of the themes sort of mesh together the Anfield rap the journey of Jurgen Klopp towards the end of the 2022 season but

But that culminated in Liverpool not winning either of the major trophies that they were doing for that season. And it also culminated in Paris. And in the aftermath of Paris, the general vibe and me myself did not really want to engage with the writing of a book. And at that point, we didn't have a publisher. So what then transpired was Kev Sampson put me in touch with Canningate.

And from there, they were really, really encouraging. Jamie Canongate was really, really encouraging about the whole thing, wanted to do it.

I'd watched the Klopp documentary we made through the Anfield Wrap, wanted something that sort of touched on some of those themes, if not, you know, sort of a written version of that story. And I'd had the structure to an extent, which is now massively different by the time you got to the end of it, but there was at least a structure that already existed that they could look at at Canongate from 2022. So I sort of pulled those two things together and had the conversation and then just sort of thought, well, and this was a big part of the whole writing of the book,

by this sort of time as well it's confirmed he's not going to do another season and so it just sort of was a really good opportunity to bookend personally professionally and obviously culturally and footballingly

sort of the nine year stretch it's it clicks in quite nicely you know the Anfield rap goes to a subscription model in 2015 Klopp joins in October 2015 obviously ends in therefore in 2024 and everything that's gone on and that's why the timeline is an important part of the book and it was never in the sort of the first structure I just wrote the timeline personally separate just to sort of remind me of things and then it occurred why not just put this in

and then hone it a little bit and not make sure you're not writing about the same thing twice or making the same points. But originally it was, like a fair amount of the book was that timeline. If you see what I mean of me saying, well, you want to address this and you want to address this and you want to address this. And then we got rid of that.

But as part of that as well, I was putting in, when I was doing that timeline, it wasn't just a footballing timeline. It was also a personal one and it was also a sort of a social and cultural one as well. And when I sort of took that to Canningate and to the excellent editor Ian Preece, the idea was to keep that stuff in because that frames a lot of what the book's about. I mean, the book, that title Transformer, I mean, you could have called it like...

you know, genius. Given, like, my love of Klopp, he probably could have got away with Messiah. I would have been quite comfortable with that. But why did you call it Transformer? Gavin Sampson told me to. Oh, OK, that's interesting. This is not that much more complicated. I am very into, like, I quite like to devolve bits of my thinking to other people. So, literally, when Kevin introduced me to Jamie Canningate, one of the last things he said as he walked off, we talked about it and had our first conversation about what the book could or couldn't be.

And Kev said, and you should call a transformer and then basically put two pints down on the table and said, I'll leave it to you and walked out. And I'm into that sort of thing without it being, you know, remarkably sort of dramatic. I just like, you know, if someone's had a good idea, then let's just go with someone's good idea. And if someone can do your thinking for you and you trust that person and you trust their instinct, then, you know, go with it. A lot of the time, that's, you know, a big part of,

Well, firstly, how I think actually Klopp, to an extent, manages. There's the oft-told sort of referred to anecdote that it was not Klopp who wanted Mo Salah. He had to be talked into Mo Salah by a variety of people, but he trusted those people and he allowed himself to be talked into it. And I think that there's a lot in that, I think, in terms of everything that we do really is surround or be surrounded by people that you like and trust.

And then if one of them, you know, has a good idea or says something interesting, then run with it. So yeah, that was, it just fitted and it was right. And then as sort of writing the book, we sort of working through it, it made sense to me more and more. I'm not quite sure if it was a guiding light or if it was just sort of there and present because what was really important about that notion was

was that everything was already here. I mean, not everything. Mo Salah wasn't already here and so on, but people who work at the football club were transformed. The football club itself was transformed. Players were transformed, Firmino, Henderson, so on and so forth. And then the idea of the wider city stuff. And so much of what was always what people see as part of what Klopp did or what Klopp sort of inspired around the way, but loads of it already existed.

I've been going for God knows how long. Boss nights existed in the 13-14 season, which is why I put them in the prologue in the way in which I do, because I think it's important that that's understood. But what Klopp was able to do was offer and create the circumstances for things to transform.

and lots and lots of bits that Klopp, even now, may not even know about or certainly may not entirely understand because he hasn't got the time. He's had other things to do all the way through whilst he's been doing this. He has his bit to focus on. But part of what he was able to do was to create the circumstances where things could transform. And by the end of the period of the stretch, the world is quite a different place. I think if you take nine years of football, say, from...

2003 work backwards to 1994 you see the impact of the Premier League but actually football doesn't change all that much it really isn't that sort of an epoch defining era you know even think politically yes there's the arrival for instance of the new Labour government but what there isn't is e.g. a pandemic the major and still ramifications global event over that period is September the 11th

but there isn't stuff. September the 11th in the long run has affected a lot of people's lives, but it did not affect people's direct lives in the same way that a pandemic does, et cetera, et cetera. So it is a nine-year period, I think one which is also genuinely quite transformative. The world prior to 2015 and the world post-2024, I think, are quite different places. I mean, I want to come back to that, but before that,

Maybe we'll dip in a little bit to the fourth E and thinking about that transformer theme. How do you think Klopp was transformed? Early on in the book, you talk about these kind of moments where he's slightly kind of like horrified by English football and its ways and the kind of things that English football doesn't even, you know, question about itself. And then by the end, I mean, on the one hand, you know, he's a very different like coach and possibly a very different human being. Yeah.

Yeah, I think, well, yeah, I think he first, first and foremost, I think he came with being different in mind. I think this is an important and sort of missed bit with Klopp. I think he didn't want to be the constant rolling Tyro that he had been in German football. You know, he gets the main job in his early 30s. He, you know, I don't think he is even 40 by the time he then progresses and gets the Dortmund job.

He rises to prominence in German sort of cultural life by virtue of doing World Cup coverage. And I think he had wanted to effectively be an older man by the time he got to Liverpool and took the Liverpool job. And I think that this is an important...

and occasionally sort of missed bits. I remember when we got him and there was loads of stuff of him hanging off barriers with supporters and sprinting down touchlines and kicking advertising hordes. And over the time he ends up at Liverpool, there's a fair amount of all of that stuff that he can't keep away from the surface. But I think he wants to be different. He wants to be coming over with a certain...

with a new-ish, still himself, but other aspects of himself coming to the fore in there. And I know that's important. And I think that, you know, in lots of ways, for Klopp, the sort of the core year, his foundational year as Liverpool manager is almost in a way 2018. He's doing loads and loads of the hard work and putting all the building blocks in place from the day he arrives. But it's 2018 where I think he flips from being Liverpool manager to a British cultural figure.

it's in the run up to the Champions League final that brilliant team that he's putting together that just is so exciting for everyone where you know it's around that time he for instance does long what you can sort of pass as long form interviews with

People like Donald McRae with Channel 4 News, where he gets asked more and more about matters that don't just pertain to what happens on the pitch. And people find out that, A, he's got opinions. B, he's thought them through. C, he's very open about what he doesn't know and doesn't entirely understand. But D, he's not afraid to voice all of these things together. And he was almost certainly that person in 2015, 2016. But as I put in the book, winning helps.

if you win, people are more likely to want to know what you think about things, people are more likely to want to engage and people are more likely to listen the other side. And so in this sort of post-vote to leave the European Union reality, Klopp, I mean, in a ton of ways, Klopp is actually the most prominent European in the country in 2018 and that

That should beg some questions about the country, I would argue. But it doesn't. But Klopp, therefore, becomes a little bit of the voice in the centre of something. And that just sort of then doesn't stop right the way through until the end of his time at Liverpool. And I think that...

In a couple of ways, it means he also ends up in some people's psyche as a little bit of a baddie, if you're prominent in British public life, that at some point people are going to emphatically take against you. But I think it also almost hammers down... I write in the book about the day he left, and to me, one of the biggest shocks was because I am in our bubble.

one of the biggest shocks was the extent to which it was national news story and by the end of the day that made complete sense to me and writing the book it makes complete sense to me and everything else makes complete sense to me but 11.05 on that day when the news breaks at 11 o'clock and I'm basically having to mediate an argument between BBC News and Sky News as to which of the two I'll go to live on the back of Klopp's press conference I was just a bit like well this is mad um

But now and sort of in the fullness of time, that makes sense. Then the more you then conceive of it, I mean, you know, you'll have had a similar day and people listening who either like football or don't like football may well remember the day. I'm sure you had lots and lots of people who you thought they're not even particularly interested in football, Dave, were texting you.

and saying, well, what's going on here? And what's this about? And oh my God, are you all right? Almost that little bit as well. I went to a good mate of mine's 40th and the atmosphere was bizarrely funereal as, you know, people were like, oh, happy birthday to my mate. But most of them were like, how are you doing? Are you all right?

Do you need to sit down? Are you okay? Yeah, so you've got this accelerated existence around that on that day. My friend Adam, as I say, again, I observe it within there, he always points out that on Greatest Hits Radio, if Klopp's in a press conference, they always want to close the news bulletins with Klopp, or they wanted to, because it was this idea that, well, firstly, he might say something interesting, but second, it's a reassuring voice. It's a lot like seeing nuns around the place,

you're reassured that the world is spinning on its axis, you're in Klopp's talking on a Friday. And I think that still remained right the way up until the end, the case with him. And I think that that is, again, you can decide because if you're online and if you football online, lots of people have very strong views about the Liverpool manager, many of which are negative because they have negative views about Liverpool Football Club. But actually, I think just amongst normal people in the country, there was just a sense of, he's nice, he's likeable.

And I think that that's still an important part of all of this. And I think it's an important part of the book. Monday.com is the one centralized platform for everything work-related. And with Monday.com, work is just easier.

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that, you know, near decade of cultural and social transformation, you know, just in a kind of simple single question. But one thing that comes through both in like your own kind of activities going all over the world, but also I suppose some of the

possibly kind of changes to the Anfield crowd is the club's global status. And I wonder if you could give just a little flavour of where the club is as a global institution and how that might have changed or developed. I think the depth of affection for the club is the bit that is missed in a global sense. I think you need to be careful because...

There's something that obviously happens in sports. There is a league table. The first thing a league table does is it compares one football team to another one. That's literally the purpose of it. And I think that the difficulty about talking about the depth of feeling I think there is about Liverpool globally is

is that you always end up having to contrast that with another football team and then people feel as though you're being partisan. And it becomes very difficult to sort of say, no, this is just what I've observed and not this is sort of a big partisan decision. But it is my genuinely held view that as a sports team,

there is a quite astonishing depth of feeling for Liverpool Football Club and, by extension, the city of Liverpool in amongst the Liverpool support. I think it is, or verges on, unique. I think it is different to a lot of the other bits and pieces that I've also been able to observe. And there's one really difficult thing at the minute, and I've got a very good example, and the problem with it is that it compares Liverpool and Manchester United.

for the last time post writing the book we were in the US in the summer and there was a shared fan experience before a friendly and the Liverpool aspects of it were just all a bit different and a bit differently done and Man United were using the excellent Andy Mitten and Andy will go blow for blow with anyone on this stuff and understands it brilliantly and is exceptional

But Liverpool's roots around this, the work that was done, the number of people, and I think that this is another interesting thing in the current context because time moves on. And if I was to write about this now, I would have written...

Liverpool had Liverpool Football Club had more people who worked for Liverpool Football Club at this event than Manchester United because they took it more seriously and but also it's now been baked in for a long period there was two people in particular were working for United and I've rarely seen people work as hard because where they are too and as I say this is not to talk down their commitment or their love of Manchester United or their jobs if anything it's the opposite but

For two of them, Liverpool had at least 10. And these two were doing the work of Liverpool's 10. But Liverpool have long been working on this and have seen this. And one of the things that they saw, as mad as this is, the night before they played at the MCG in 2013, the Anfield Raptors did a live show. And I know now, people from Liverpool came, a thousand people came, people from Liverpool came, and they went, essentially, why the fuck aren't we doing this?

And from there now, it's like a slightly more, if we say contested space, it's not, you know, around these sorts of things. We're able to work closely with the club and we enjoy that process actually because they believe in it. And they also believe that they're representing the city and they believe that they're representing the foundational work. And they believe that, you know, Liverpool, when they do the tours, Liverpool move half the operation on the tour.

because they believe in it and they've got the evidence and I must think the data to feel that this is worthwhile. And I think that that is something different and I think Liverpool have come to a set of conclusions ahead of a lot of other people and there's a real authenticity and earnestness about this work that they do. And that's picked up, I think, by the wider supporter base and has been for an extended period of time. And I think that's what I mean. I think worrying about...

the sort of the fripperies of who is or isn't the biggest sports franchise in terms of just surface numbers. Liverpool are up there in that conversation. But I think that what Liverpool... And so much of it happens because it happens on an organic level. So this isn't me saying... I don't believe it is top-down. I just think the club have realised there is this and we can hook into it. I don't think the club have gone, we can manufacture this and go from there. I believe, for instance, the same thing could exist...

for Manchester United. But what's not being created around Manchester United for whatever reason is a lot of similar sort of prisms to reflect this. And I think part of that reason is in the same way there was a... When United were remarkably successful at the start of the Premier League, there was a commercial boom. Liverpool were not as successful, weren't as commercially switched on. But one of the reasons why Liverpool's commercial operation took ages to catch up...

is everyone knows the story of the club shop was closed the day after Istanbul but in order to know the club shop was closed the day after Istanbul Istanbul had to have happened you needed the success to realize where the gaps were and I think there's a bit of a thing that because United success hasn't been present during this period when the sort of the idea of being able to leverage and I mean that in a positive way as well as the obvious financial way leverage the global support I

I actually think that, and this should be terrifying for the world of football, given United's heft commercially. At some point, United will realise how to leverage all of this and then everyone will be in real trouble. But you don't do it by cutting people's jobs who work and so on and so forth. That's not how you, if anything, it's the opposite.

And that, you know, and that to me, when I see that sort of news in a purely commercial, competitive sense between the football clubs, I think, well, they're making a mess of that and long may that continue. You're running this football club wrong if you're doing that.

So I think all in, you know, I do think that that is there. I think it is global. I think that the global stuff's really, really important. But what the global actually wants isn't for you to be more global. It's that they want to come and be part of your thing and they want your thing to be your thing the way it is. So when I go to America, I go and speak to supporters and go to supporters clubs, I don't feel there's some sort of

endless appetite for game 39 or for games to be played there I think they'd love if there was a way to do a genuine competitive tournament I was stunned and still think it's a massive tactical error that FIFA did not in the way in which they've effectively bent the rules to get Messi's team in

I was amazed FIFA didn't find a way to bend the rules to get Liverpool into the Club World Cup. Genuinely, I think it's such a missed beat because we either took it deadly seriously, we'd have gone mad, and there'd be people right now talking about what they would... People would be making the plans now, we'd be going...

We'd be doing events that'd be massive. I'm stunned, and I just think it shows in a mad way how out of touch they are. In the same way that, for instance, if you're FIFA internationally, you always want Argentina involved. You should always be looking for a way. If you can get Liverpool involved and Real Madrid involved...

it's just sort of half the battle in different ways, sort a lot out, then you find a way to get Barcelona in, get Boca Juniors in, get a couple of... And I'm just... To me, I'm stunned. I was always convinced they will find a way to break the rules to get us in this, and they just didn't. And I think it was just a real error. I think it would have worked better for them in the long run, but that's the way it is. But...

My point being is that, where I started, was that I don't think the overseas support wants black competitive games. What they'd like, as I say, if there was a tournament and it was a meaningful one and it was happening in the United States, the US Reds would go mad for it. And if we all went mad for it as well, they'd go mad for it and we'd all be in it together. What they don't want is to see the game taken away from Anfield because they see Anfield as, you know, holy ground. And I think that remembering all of that's the most important thing

And I think that Liverpool have actually done a good job on the whole of remembering that up until sort of recent fractious stuff around price increases, where I think Liverpool have allowed themselves to be bullied by the rest of the Premier League or have just decided, not bullied, took the path of least resistance. And I think that in loads of senses, Liverpool and Fenway Sports Group will be really well served to actually work out the some paths of what would be high resistance levels

to do some stuff around English football. But if they were smart about it, they'd actually be backed by the support on a local, national and international sense. I mean, you touched on a lot there with finances, FIFA. There's questions about how the ownership functions with the club. For those people who don't know, they're based in the US. Boston, yeah. Yeah, and...

Part of, I suppose, where the book goes beyond just talking about Klopp or just talking about things like the kind of culture in the city or reflecting on the meaning of particular games is that middle section where you're talking about, I suppose, the kind of governance and structure of the game. And we'll leave people to read it for themselves. There's some really great ideas in there. But I'm intrigued...

Like, as an author, I guess, was it, you know, this is an opportunity or actually, you know, we need a kind of middle section for the book. What could go in there? No, no. I mean, I actually write a chapter in the book about... Which is basically me... I don't think the chapter that ends up in the book, which is me arguing with the editor and the publisher, would end up in the book. But fair play to everyone involved. It did. And I also took some of their feedback on board. And it was useful. But there was...

I don't want to write another football book, certainly not for a while. And so I just had this instinct of, let's just leave it all on the pitch. And I didn't have that many words to play with. I know the book is about 85,000, but I didn't have tons and tons of words to play with. So we needed to keep it tight where possible. So the idea of that, but also when the structure was falling on in terms of

just realising off the back of the timeline stuff, actually the pandemic divides this quite neatly. That period does divide it. Not that the pandemic's finished, let's be clear, but the pandemic...

in terms of its overarching social impact in Britain. That piece of time actually divides this book quite neatly. It gives it a before and after, which therefore means it needs a middle. And in the middle, loads of mad stuff happened around football and the structure of football. But this is stuff I've been writing about on and off within the Anfield Wrap for a period of time, but which genuinely doesn't really have that much room or space within the Anfield Wrap in an odd way.

And I'm also not going to campaign on it. You know, I'm not... People every now and again say you should go and speak to people at Fair Game or something like that, and it's not really what I'm trying to achieve in terms of when I've been trying to write about it. It's not so much about trying to make... And do I have the right way to sort of phrase this? Like, I'm not eager to be in some sort of vanguard of change. I'm eager and happy to make an argument, but my argument is almost just there needs to be some arguments.

What I find exceptionally difficult about various vanguards of change from our side, very much in a verticom, because I don't even know I entirely agree with that, is so much of it's just really small-c conservative. And ultimately, for a variety of reasons, that'll just lose. In the fullness of time, that'll just lose. Instead, I think that there's got to be a conception of positive change within the game.

And I think that some of that has happened anyway within the Premier League era. And a lot of that's organic. I think also so many of the critiques around what the Premier League's ended up doing, many of which I sort of agree with the effect of, just consistently fail to take into account that whether I like it or not, on its own merits, the Premier League has been remarkably successful. And if you can't acknowledge that,

then you're just going to end up just talking across purposes, not just to the powers that be, but also to your own people. You have to be able to acknowledge that. And then the other thing that I really wanted to get in there as part of the wider thing, the wider argument, is what has to be acknowledged is also what, because of the small C conservative argument, is just knocked off the table and has been decided that that's absolutely fine.

You know, I think that looking at the competitive balance of English football at the minute, I think that the Premier League has in a number of ways done actually pretty well. You know, we're currently in a Premier League season where it feels like anyone can beat anyone in a way that is often said, but actually that isn't really true. And even now it isn't true. You know, the bottom six ultimately do not have that energy, but every other team does to an extent. Let's at least frame it there and that's no bad thing. So you've got to be able to go with that. But what you also therefore got to say is...

with the desire to continue to have collective bargaining and maybe even to share even more of the money out, which I argue for, you have to acknowledge that on a civic level that negatively impacts Liverpool. It literally does. The 3pm blackout, if you allow Liverpool LFCTV to screen games, screen the 3pm games, just the LFCTV, then you'd have a situation where LFCTV would have 50 to 100 more jobs that would be going to young people in Liverpool who either lived here or came here to university and graduated.

That argument is literally never... I've framed it in this book and it's the first time I've ever seen it written down anywhere. That that is the current reality and that is in the wider sort of conversation. Well, that just goes without saying. Well, I'm sorry, I'm a Liverpudlian. I work in the media. I'm all in favour of there being another 50 to 100 good media jobs in Liverpool, minimum. I think we can get more. And I think from there, it will be an energy that could create more and on we go.

But that's not allowed to be said as a thing that's ongoing. And I think that that's something which, as I say, I think football...

The people on whose side I should be and instinctively am, and, you know, mentioned Spirits of Shankly and all this sort of stuff. But I think there's not enough of an acknowledgement made in general. There are already things that I think that are accepted as part of the course that undermine Liverpool sportingly, Liverpool financially, and the city of Liverpool in a negative way that are just accepted as part of the course within...

with an English football. So we've got to do all of that before you want to, or I think you have to, before you talk about the other stuff. And I think that so often that doesn't happen. And then I also think you need a positive message of change. If you're going to say you would like to distribute the money better, you also need to be able to explain to people who don't get to maybe get to one or two games a season precisely why that's good full stop, but also why you're going to make the whole, and it's not a nice word, but you're going to improve the whole product as far as they're concerned. And I think standing still,

suits effectively 14 clubs in English football and doesn't suit anyone else. And that argument's not had. So when the baddies, in averted commas, try to bring about some sort of effort of change, if it undermines those 14 clubs, they will scream to the rooftops. If Rick Parry tries to bring about some form of change, those 14 clubs that distribute more money to the EFL, those 14 clubs will scream to the rooftops. The only difference is the other six clubs

are likely to not care enough in this instance and just go, well, yeah, all right, we'll side with you. Christ, can you do us a bit of a favour on some other stuff? Thanks. And that is genuinely how the upper echelon of controlling the money of English football works. And what there isn't is a sort of a really clear basis of the why of what could change.

and what therefore could change in a really exciting way and what there also isn't and within the book when I sort of talk about restructuring English football changing reducing the size of leagues distributing more money having the Premier League literally cover 32 teams rather than 20 I think you can argue at the minute the Premier League covers 25 teams because the parachute payments but sort of expanding that 20 or 25 to 32 and

and then ease in all the cliff edges. That's the argument. But I also simultaneously say, and what you could do is that every four years you could play a Premier League trophy somewhere else in the world and give it a Champions League place if someone wins it. And then by doing that, it's an opportunity to get more money in for everyone. So you're offsetting the reduction in Premier League TV money in a national sense on the one hand, and yet put more rules in so that clubs have got to be properly run. You can make a really good argument if you're any one of the top teams, why should we give more money away?

when look at these EFL clubs and they run this badly. But then I'd make my argument to the top teams, which would be, so you're all in favour of the crowd review and regulation, and they go, oh, we've all had... I'm in favour of more regulation for them, but not for us. That's not how it works, and it can't be how it works. And so I think if you're going to move away from this constant self-interest, you need to be able to shift it at least into a form of enlightened self-interest, but also which pulls everyone together, and I just don't think that happens anywhere.

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I mean, it's funny, I was going to say like, and now back to the football, but actually what you've been talking about is a perfect example of how even thinking about, say, the Klopp-Guardiola rivalry or the impact of Liverpool against City and their, you know, record points totals was so good for the product. But at the same time, it's hard to separate from various charges, questions. But it's also good for Liverpool. I mean, this is, you know, I hint towards it in the book and I don't quite make it explicitly, not least because...

we had a finite amount of time and just even referring to City's charges just concerns people legally to such an extent and also what I was conscious of was I didn't want to write the book in a certain way and then it's off in eight months I didn't want that you know I didn't want a best before date on it but it's worth saying that literally part of the reason why A Klopp is such a brilliant is undoubtedly such a brilliant manager and B why this Liverpool team that he ended up sort of managing could be the best ever Liverpool team is because Klopp

up effectively buys into what Manchester City are so this is how good you're going to have to be to go up against them and Manchester City are that good with Pep Guardiola because of what happens in 2008 and what happened in 2008 I think there is a general sort of vibe of shouldn't have been allowed to happen and certainly then many people would agree with that the majority of people would agree with that

And then I think a vast majority of people will be of the view what happens at the very least between 2008 and 2014 with Manchester City shouldn't have been allowed to happen in the way in which it was before you get into specificities of various charges. I think we can say that. And the vast majority of people who like football would agree with that. And globally, not just in this country, but in this country as well. And then you can sort of look at the post-14 periods onwards with maybe a slightly more, well, we were where we were in 2014. Aye, and go from there.

maybe there's no guarantees on that but you can do that but if you are writing about Liverpool in that period you have to acknowledge that if what happened in 2008 didn't happen then we wouldn't have got the greatest Liverpool team you've ever seen or we probably wouldn't have got the greatest Liverpool team you've ever seen the flip side is Klopp might still be manager

because he wouldn't have been going toe-to-toe with etc etc and he might just simply have had more energy off the back of it all but I think again and this is back to you have to say the Premier League has been brilliant at being the Premier League you can not like it and you can but on its on its merits it's nailed this on those merits that rivalry happens for these reasons it is the league that the world watches.

maybe in part because of that and all of this stuff is therefore it's difficult to untangle Miguel Delaney's written something good called really good called states of play that people listening to this should read if they've got interest in that around football but even within that Miguel's excellent argument that he builds is that ultimately football through a combination of of self-interest from the people running the game and running the clubs combined with not anticipating what's coming down the track anywhere near enough

that football will just slowly but surely eat itself. And his argument is much more complicated than that, but I've sort of distilled it into that. But a really important part of that is that precedes Abramovich, that precedes Manchester City in all its ways. That is going on from the early 80s.

That change is going. And then if we say the sentence that's going on since the early 80s, then we can also therefore acknowledge, isn't it just a mirror therefore to what's happening in the British state in the early 80s? Isn't that what this is? And that's where you end up.

I mean, usually I'd ask as a kind of final question, what are you going to do next? But you've sort of preempted by saying you don't want to write another football book for a while. And I guess maybe I'll pick up on like, I can't remember if it's the very last thing in the book, but it's close to it, which is this sense of like Klopp as a person. And you talk about you met him quite a few times, both in, I guess, like professional and kind of slightly more personal kind of party circumstances. And I'm just intrigued to know like,

What was he like? He's the person who's most... So what I find absolutely fascinating about him, having met him on those occasions, including for the interviews, is he's the most present person I've ever met. So he's doing whatever it is he's doing now. So I think part of the reason why, for instance, when Liverpool...

do the video every year that used to come out and still does, and they did it before Klopp. But when Klopp is with the children in Alder Hey and the parents, he cares about that child and those parents. None of it's forced. When he's in the room with them, that's what he's doing. They're the most important people. You're in the room with me, you're the most important people. And he's not thinking about anything else. Or if he is, he's doing a great job of hiding it, having been in rooms with them on those occasions. When he is there, he is just so phenomenally present.

And there isn't, I don't think, you know, I think that's almost quite a unique characteristic. He's not thinking about the thing that comes next. A couple of seconds ago, people will just hear my alarm beep, possibly as they listen to this. And the reason my alarm was beeping is because that bag there, I've got to carry it to the football to drop it off at the Glenbrook. And when we sat down and we started to do this interview before, I was like, I'm sure there's something I need to do.

And it's there in the back of my mind as we're talking and then it finally occurred to me. So I didn't need the alarm, but I was like, yeah, there it is. That's the bike. You've got to make sure that you remember to pick that up and take that with you. But I'm still talking to Dave. I'd like to think I've come over as though I'm very present. But Jürgen is just genuinely, I'm in this room now. We've agreed we're doing this. When we are doing this, we are doing nothing else. And I think that is maybe a little bit of a football thing. It might actually be a little bit of a, for want of a better sort of way of phrasing it, a military thing almost. You know, that idea of when your time is allotted

And I've tried to sort of match that really in a way, haven't seen it. The calendar and the schedule of the Anfield rap is the beast that runs us all. But the thing I always sort of try to be

really when in amongst very busy Mondays post-match is yes but you've worked this time out so now you're doing this episode of the Anfield Rap so this is all there is you can't even be thinking about either future stuff later today you need to have done all your planning for that in advance or you can't you know you can't be elsewhere you've got to be present you've got to stay present and

And I think that that is, you know, I think it's a remarkable trick, but I think Jürgen just has it innately. I think he's probably surprised other people don't. Like genuinely, I think he's still listening to that. I suspect if he was to hear this, he'd go, well, isn't that everything? And not realise that, you know, and it was really interesting when he resigned. One of the things he said when he talked a little bit more about it was he talked about being in a meeting to plan the following summer.

and feeling like he was distracted in the meeting and he thought, I can't do this. I mean, Jesus Christ, the amount of meetings I have about planning next summer. And trust me, Jürgen, I am distracted. But I'm not going to pack in what it is I'm doing. But that's because I'm distracted sometimes in meetings by anyone with a variety of things. But to him...

That idea of, no, no, no, my focus should be on the thing that we've decided we're talking about here. And that's what I mean by how present he is. And he's present in all the good ways. I've been fortunate enough never to have been on the bad end of how present he is, and I suspect it's particularly horrible and quite relentless. But not being one of his footballers, I've sort of dodged that bullet. But, you know, I think that that is...

I suspect also if you had a lot of that, it might be tiring. I suspect if you're also that person, it may well be tiring as well. And when you think about all of that, what sort of happens with him and how he leaves makes sense. But, you know, I find, find, slash found him, and I hope that I will get to sort of sit down with him again. But just found him a warm, compelling person who genuinely likes people and wants the best for them. And I think that's the other sort of part of this. So you've got someone who's very present and,

and who in that moment wants the best for you. That's a very nice place to be. And I think that that is a big part of who he was and what it was that he wanted to do.