RB Leipzig sporting director Ralf Rangnick has claimed that Liverpool midfielders James Milner and Jordan Henderson were the ‘absolute average’ before Reds boss Jurgen Klopp came along.
The two men have seen exponential improvement in their games under the tutelage of the maverick German, and Rangnick believes Klopp has been revelatory for them.
“If you look at Jordan Henderson or James Milner, before Klopp they were the absolute average,” he told German publication Franffurter Allgemeine.
“The fact that they have now become such players is entirely up to their coach.”
OPINION
This just seems incredibly disrespectful from Rangnick. We know what he’s trying to do here, which is pay Klopp a big compliment. He wants the Reds boss to know how highly he thinks of his coaching abilities. However, in the process he has made a faintly ridiculous comment about two England internationals. We all know that Henderson got off to a rough start in his Liverpool career, but he had already earned his first Three Lions cap five years before Klopp landed on Merseyside. He’d also already been to two major tournaments with England prior to having Klopp as his manager. Then there’s Milner, who was hugely established at club and international level. The veteran had already claimed two Premier League titles with Manchester City before Klopp arrived in his life. So for Rangnick to say that these two were the ‘absolute average’ before the Liverpool boss came onto the scene is just massively ignorant and incredibly disrespectful of what they’d achieved in their careers prior to 2015.
