Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has won the League Managers’ Association’s (LMA) Manager of the Year Award for the 2019-20 season. Klopp, who has led Liverpool to their first Premier League glory in 30 years, won the accolade on Monday.
Joining Liverpool from Borussia Dortmund in 2015, Klopp has transformed the Liverpool team in a span of less than five years. Under his tutelage, the Reds have won everything that and English club aspire to, except the FA Cup.
Liverpool were crowned the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup winnners in 2019 before they bagged the Premier League title this year with a record seven matches to spare and an 18 points gap with second-placed Manchester City.
“I am absolutely delighted to get this wonderful trophy. It’s really wonderful and I had already the opportunity to have a look who won it before and there are obviously a lot of big, big Liverpool names involved,” Klopp was quoted as saying on the official website of Liverpool Football Club.
“Not only Liverpool names but big, big Liverpool names as well. Bill Shankly, I think, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Kenny (Dalglish) – it looks like he’s all over the trophy everywhere! Brendan (Rodgers) won it, well deserved.
“I said it a lot of times, that I’m OK as a manager, but they make me, they make us, a really special bunch of football brains and I love to work with them together. To work together with Pep Lijnders, Peter Krawietz, John Achterberg, Vitor Matos and Jack Robinson – it’s a pleasure,” he added.
The annual Manager of the Year prize, which was inaugurated in its current guise in 1993, is voted for by professional managers and awarded to “the manager who, in their opinion, has made the greatest use of the resources available to them in the current season”.
Chelsea Women’s manager Emma Hayes was named Women’s Super League manager of the year after helping the club to a league and League Cup double.
Klopp, 53, is also the current best FIFA men’s coach as well. He was inducted in the LMA Hall of Fame last year. The last Liverpool coach to win the LMA Manager of the Year award was Brendan Rodgers in 2013-14.