Jurgen Klopp has left Liverpool — he shouldn't have been told he was leaving in January

Jurgen Klopp may have been wiser to leave his departure announcement until the end of the season. Photo: REUTERS/Carl Recine

Here, in the final stages of Jurgen Klopp's love affair with Liverpool, you feel like you are witnessing everything for the last time. With 24 days to go, everything is frozen for posterity: his last Merseyside derby, his last criticism at a press conference, his last off-hand speech to the fourth official. This chapter should have been filled with joy and gratitude at parting ways with the visionary manager, but instead the dominant emotion after Goodison's first defeat to Everton was regret at the worst possible moment.

The source of this regret is not simply the almost certain loss of the championship title that would have graced his farewell. It's a poignant memory of how, four months before the end of the season, he made a quasi-presidential address to fans and announced he was leaving. The theory was sound enough: Klopp, a man of inspiration, energy and heavy metal analogies, could use his departure as an incentive to encourage his players to perform at the highest level. “Let’s really do this now,” he urged. «Let's make the most of this season and we'll have one more thing to smile about when we look back in the future.»

But today's reality presents the sharpest contrast to this idealism. Liverpool don't just look like a pale imitation of their usual freewheeling personality. It seems that, in a strange mirror image of their manager's original justification for leaving, they have run out of energy. That defeat to Everton was a case in point: a petulant Darwin Nunes lacking any ruthlessness as a centre-forward, Virgil van Dijk making his only difference by berating the referee and a listless Mohamed Salah seeming to wonder why he hadn't done so . accept Saudi Arabia's £200m offer last summer.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp consoles Darwin Nunez after difficult night. Photo: Shutterstock/Adam Vaughn

The loudest alarm, however, is Klopp's change in behavior. Typically, this is a man hypersensitive to every heartbeat, so attuned to Liverpool fans that he joins them in swearing at a Ukrainian airport. Now he just looks numb as he watches this campaign fade into familiar broken dreams. It wouldn't be a surprise if at some level Klopp mentally switches off, half imagining a sun-drenched beach where he won't have to answer endless questions about the title race changing. But what is striking is the openness with which he expresses his feelings of detachment.

“I was just trying to understand how I felt,” he said after his final European game for Liverpool against Atalanta. — And it was nothing. At this point we must point out that Klopp's reputation as a master motivator is well deserved. But this is hardly a surefire way to get players to admit that a terrible result leaves you cold. Honestly, it makes about as much sense as telling them in the middle of the most intense three-way championship battle in recent memory that you're tired and quit.

Liverpool's form has protected Klopp from a full investigation into the timing of his resignation announcement. Their triumph a month later in the League Cup final, which he described as his «favourite» in his 8½ years in charge, showed this was a man who could do no wrong. He created one all-conquering side, and here, thanks to a small galaxy of academy stars, he bequeathed another. And yet, the more Liverpool faltered during this crucial run-in period, the more the aura of infallibility dissipated.

A lengthy managerial send-off is rarely the wisest idea.

Wayne Rooney, watching the famous match for his beloved Everton, wasted little time in identifying the root of Liverpool's woes. «The timing of Klopp's departure will definitely have an impact on these players,» he said. “The players will look at it and see it as their way out.” It was an analysis that is difficult to dispute. As excellent as Everton were here, adhering to Sean Dyche's master plan of crisp counter-attacks and strong set-piece defence, Liverpool looked like a team hitting the brakes prematurely.

Long managerial send-offs rarely go well. . the wisest ideas. Sir Alex Ferguson noted that announcing his retirement at the end of the season in 2001 was the «biggest mistake» of his career, explaining that it led to some of his players «putting down their tools». Liverpool, quickly beaten by Crystal Palace, Atalanta and Everton, exude a very similar atmosphere. It feels like players like Salah and Van Dijk, who achieved such remarkable heights under Klopp, are struggling to comprehend life without him. We already thought we were going to see the most luxurious swan song since Frank Sinatra. But this is one of the outgoing parties that threatens, partly due to Klopp's own miscalculation, to fail.