Sven-Goran Eriksson has supported Liverpool to win the Premier League championship this season and thinks Jurgen Klopp deserves huge praise for his management of the club’s young talent lately.
Liverpool is currently only separated from top spot Arsenal by goal difference with ten games left in the season, which is Klopp’s final season as manager.
Liverpool was on track for a historic quadruple after winning the Carabao Cup last month, but a dramatic FA Cup defeat by Manchester United has left the club fighting for success in the Premier League and the Europa League.
The Merseyside team will be eager to return to winning ways when they host eighth-placed Brighton next week, following a 1-1 draw with title rivals Manchester City in their last top flight match.
Due to the absence of many of Liverpool’s key players for much of the season, Klopp has been forced to heavily rely on players from the club’s youth ranks as the challenging season has progressed.
Former England manager Eriksson, a lifelong Liverpool fan, has great respect for the work Klopp has done and predicts the German will claim the Premier League trophy for a second time in May.
When asked if Liverpool can win a treble this season, the Swede replied: ‘I don’t know…
‘Well, I think that Liverpool will win the league. They can’t win the FA Cup, unfortunately.
‘But they’re playing good football and young players coming up, players which I never saw.
‘Suddenly, he puts them in very important games as well. You need a lot of courage to do that.
‘So it’s nice to see that Liverpool is great and will Liverpool will be great, even in the future, looking at the young players.’
Eriksson, who will manage a Liverpool FC Legends side against Ajax this weekend, was surprised and saddened when Klopp announced his impending departure back in January.
‘That was a surprise for me. No, I haven’t spoken to him but it was very kind of him to make an invitation and one day I will come!’ he said.
‘But he’s doing a great job and I am sad that he’s going to leave.’
Eriksson, head coach of the Three Lions between 2001 and 2006, disclosed in January that he had ‘at best a year to live’ after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
A campaign quickly gathered pace to grant Eriksson his dying wish of managing Liverpool and the 76-year-old said it was fulfilling a ‘dream’ by leading the likes of Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres and Sami Hyypia against Ajax this weekend.
‘When I was a manager I always dreamed about [managing] Liverpool but it never happened,’ he told reporters.
‘It was almost happened. There were some talks in the past, many years ago.
‘It’s like a fantasy. I could never have imagined it. It must be the greatest atmosphere in the world and part of that is the song when the players walk out – You’ll Never Walk Alone.
‘When they asked, I thought it was a prank. Of course I would come to a Legends match. It is for charity, which makes it even more lovely.’
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