Zeljko Buvac headed out of Liverpool after his shock conduct during the team’s Premier League draw at Stoke City last month, according to the Times.
The newspaper claim the Merseyside giants’ assistant manager had become “increasingly distant” from the coaching team led by Jurgen Klopp as their 17-year alliance was broken.
The Times report that Buvac “did not even study the half-time video clips with Klopp as normal, choosing instead to sit on his own in another part of the dressing room” at Anfield as the team drew 0-0 against Paul Lambert’s side.
OPINION
It remains to be seen if Buvac will return to Liverpool and resume his near-two decade coaching partnership with Klopp that began at German club Mainz. Given that the Bosnian has temporarily stepped down from his position just as the team are on the verge of greatness and ahead of their biggest match in 11 years, it appears unlikely. Liverpool have denied reports that Buvac has fallen out with Klopp and that he has left the club, although they have admitted he will not return this season due to ‘personal reasons’. Long regarded as the ‘brains’ of the backroom staff, Buvac was linked with the Arsenal job earlier this month and was said to have held informal talks with the club. Clearly, something significant has happened behind the seasons for such a key ally of the manager, who he has always talked so fondly about to the media, to have walked out at such a key juncture of the campaign. His surprise behaviour in the Stoke match, when he was not even involved with studying key footage as the match hung in the balance, is symptomatic of a serious breakdown in the relationship.
