Sunday afternoon will be dominated by the end of Jurgen Klopp’s long goodbye but Liverpool are also set to bid farewell to a number of players - including centre back Joel Matip.
And that is despite Klopp calling for the Cameroon star, who has been sidelined by a serious knee injury, to be awarded a new contract earlier this season.
Matip was a key player for Klopp, making 201 appearances in central defence and proving a reliable partner for Virgil van Dijk. And in February the German manager stressed that Matip’s years of service for the club should have afforded him some generosity from the club hierarchy.
“I’m pretty sure the club will show their class, just how they should do,” Klopp said. “I’m pretty sure the club told Joel already that whatever happens so long as he is injured.
“Now we have to make decisions together with Joel, how it looks after that. That’s a normal thing to do. But yes he deserves all the support from us and he will get it.”
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Asked if that meant the club would give him a new contract, Klopp replied: “I would say so but it’s not my decision in the end. I cannot sign the paper.”
But on Friday Liverpool announced that Matip, along with Klopp and midfielder Thiago Alcantara, is moving on this summer. The 32-year-old won seven medals, including a Champions League and Premier League, across eight years.
And reflecting this week on his contribution to the cause, Klopp said of Matip: “In all the years that I have been involved in football, I am not sure I have come across too many players who are more loved than Joel Matip. I’m not even sure it would be possible to say anything bad about him.
Joel Matip will leave Liverpool at the end of the season (Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)“A wonderful professional, a wonderful footballer and a wonderful human being – we have been blessed to have him with us for as long as we have and now all we can do is wish him well as he heads off in a new direction.
“Joel’s qualities as a player are there for all to see and as a club we have benefited from them since the first moment that he joined. I don’t think he has had too many headlines over the years but he has only ever been a very famous figure within our group.
“I have said before that if there was one person who wouldn’t care if he was underrated it would be Joel, but the truth is we could not have rated him more highly. Not only has he set the standards for himself, he has set them for others and this is one of the main reasons why his time here has been so successful.”
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