Does Manchester City’s guilty verdict enhance Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool legacy?
Let's be clear about something. There are no winners from Manchester City's guilty verdict for historic financial breaches.
Not the Premier League, for finally nailing the bad guys after a long investigation and independent commission. Not the rival clubs, gleefully celebrating the circumstances that could see City crumble. Certainly not the 'I told you so' camp, taking pride in placing asterisks next to all of the Cityzens' record-breaking achievements of recent years.
There is an argument, however, that Jurgen Klopp's standing might just rise retrospectively. That will be little compensation to the German, whose side missed out on massive moments while challenging City for major titles, but as Liverpool face Manchester City on the Premier League's return this weekend, it's an intriguing side-story.
Klopp left Liverpool in 2024 as a club great. He won every possible major honour at Anfield, and was the man to end a 30-year wait for the title. But, had it not been for City, it could have all been so much more.
For Klopp, the obvious starting point is the narrowness of the margins. Liverpool finished with 97 points in 2018/19 and 92 in 2021/22, losing the title to City by one point both times. Between those campaigns, they won a drought-breaking title with 99 points.
The peak of Klopp's side came between February 2019 and February 2020. Across a 38-game run of Premier League games, the equivalent to an entire season, Liverpool took 110 points from 114 available. Klopp's side won 36 games, drew two, and did not lose.
That run came alongside Champions League success in Madrid, and set up their long-awaited title success the following season. No Premier League team has ever been so dominant across a 12-month period.
These achievements came despite the challenge of toppling City, who have been deemed guilty of inflating revenue figures by £830m between 2009 and 2018. Across Klopp's reign at Anfield, City ranked third in the Premier League for net spend. Liverpool were ninth, with less than half of City's net investment.
There is a distinction to make here. The financial findings cover a period ending in 2018, before either of Liverpool’s one-point title defeats, and City are appealing the decision. The verdict does not establish that those later titles were won through financial misconduct.
But the advantages built during one period do not necessarily disappear when it ends. A squad assembled, strengthened and retained can carry its quality into subsequent seasons. If the findings stand, they give us reason to reconsider the strength Klopp was competing against, even if they cannot tell us how those title races would otherwise have unfolded.
That is where the question of his legacy becomes interesting. One Premier League title records what Klopp won, but says little about the level Liverpool reached in pursuit of more. The verdict may change how we judge those near-misses—and how much credit he deserves for making the margins so small.
Not only did Klopp take on a team turbo-charged by historical financial breaches and occasionally win, the agonising near-misses paint a picture of what might have been.
In 2018/19, when Liverpool missed out on the title with a record runners-up haul of 97 points, the Reds lost just once in the Premier League. That defeat? An epic Etihad encounter that saw City escape with the points. John Stones' desperate goal-line clearance was arguably the defining moment in the title race.
Had Liverpool won that game, with every other result unchanged, Klopp's team would have ended the season Invincible, as Centurions, and as Premier League and European champions. The margins were that razor-thin.
Klopp will take no comfort from history that cannot be rewritten. Nor will the Liverpool fans who will feel City prevented them from scaling even greater heights. But there will be anger born from the frustration of those near misses.
An Anfield cauldron awaits the Cityzens this weekend, in a fixture the scriptwriters could not have better picked for the Premier League's return.
