‘Player power’ is sadly the talk of the Premier League once again after Claudio Ranieri’s sacking.
The former Leicester City boss has received huge waves of sympathy amidst his dismissal, with rumours continuing to circulate that several of his star players held a summit with the board before he was removed from his job.
It’s a remarkable turn of events just nine months after the Italian heroically guided them to the Premier League title at odds of 5000/1.
While several of those stars have since come out publicly to deny the rumours, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insists it’s up to the board alone to make decisions – and they’re wrong to listen to the players.
“If there is a direct way to the board – if the owners sit with the players and ask ‘how are you?’ and they say ‘not too good’ and it is ‘why?’ – ‘because of the manager’,” he said, quoted via the Mirror.
“It is not about how powerful. The players need to be powerful but not in sacking managers. They never did it. It’s not like the Leicester players did it or something. It is if someone asked they gave an answer.
“I have never had this situation. There is never a direct line to the owner or whatever. As long as the players talk together there is no problem. If they start talking about you? For this you need an ear on the other side.”
Klopp certainly has no such problems at Liverpool, where he is hugely popular with both the fans and the players.
It’s fair to say the Reds are enjoying rather different fortunes to Leicester, however, with the Foxes undoubtedly fighting for top flight survival.
The two sides meet tonight at the King Power, and another defeat for Leicester will pile the pressure on owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.
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