Former Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders
Former Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders (Image: Getty Images)
Former Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders is under consideration to join Pep Guardiola's coaching staff at Manchester City, it has been claimed.
Lijnders left the Reds at the same time as Jurgen Klopp last summer and was soon appointed as the new head coach at Red Bull Salzburg. However, his time in Austria didn't go to plan, as he was sacked in December following a difficult start to the season.
He was interviewed for the vacant position at Championship club Norwich City before they honed in on Bristol City boss Liam Manning instead.
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Now, according to The Times, Lijnders could be set for a return to the Premier League, as he has been tipped to join Guardiola's backroom team at City after Juanma Lillo and Inigo Dominguez left the club.
In addition, Carlos Vicens has left to become head coach at Portuguese side SC Braga, meaning Guardiola's set-up is due for a major revamp this summer.
As well as Lijnders, City are lining up a promotion for Kolo Toure, who returned to the club last season as assistant Under 18s coach. Toure spent four years as a player at the Etihad Stadium and has spent time coaching at Celtic, Leicester City and Wigan Athletic since he retired from professional football.
Lijnders first arrived at Liverpool in 2014 as development coach to Brendan Rodgers and later continued as assistant head coach to Klopp following his appointment a year later.
However, Lijnders decided to leave the Reds in January 2018 after accepting the management job at Dutch second-tier side NEC, signing a 18-month contract. But he endured a difficult time in the Netherlands and was dismissed after NEC failed to gain promotion to the Eredivisie.
In June 2018, Lijnders returned to Liverpool as part of Klopp's coaching staff. He helped the Reds win the Champions League for the sixth time, their first Club World Cup and the Premier League at the end of the 2019/20 season.
The 42-year-old ended up staying at Anfield until the end of last season and left alongside Klopp in May 2024. Speaking after it was announced he would depart the Reds after almost a decade of service, he said: "It's not easy, leaving such a club.
"But in life I feel always you have to do the right thing and the right thing means that in the summer we said we continue and we go with all we have, we make it 'the Last Dance', we make it like a proper ending. Not knowing that it would be that season but knowing that the project is coming to an end.
"I felt that with the back-up of the ownership, signing the right players, we are just going back to basics. No negativity: I said it as a joke in pre-season that everybody who is or shows one sign of negativity, I will punch them in the head! Just to make sure that we go and draw a line, we go with a clean sheet.
"That's always good, that you see it as just one season to go and with the new energy boys, with a few main ones leaving – but that created [a situation] that other boys had to step up – we were in the right frame to attack the season and then with time we do well.
"It’s really nice that we can make this decision early so we leave the club with a squad who is full of hunger, full of talent, a lot of leadership as well, who can, for the next years, be really successful."