The reason for the departure of former Liverpool head of post-match analysis Harrison Kingston may explain why he is not the only key employee who has left the club in recent years.
Kingston first joined Liverpool in 2012 and, along with first-team post-match analyst Mark Leyland, worked closely with Jurgen Klopp’s assistant Peter Kravitz before, during and after the games.
He left the Reds at the end of 2020, shortly after helping the club win their first ever Premier League title. Around the same time, Andy Massey, the head of the medical service, and physical therapists Christopher Rohrbeck, Richie Patridge and Jose Luis Rodriguez left.
Since then, a number of other important employees have decided to leave, most notably sports director Michael Edwards last year, and his replacement Julian Ward and research director Ian Graham will also leave in 2023.
Kingston, who is now the executive director of the Moroccan Football Federation, says he made the decision to leave Liverpool feeling he had achieved everything he could at the club.
“As soon as we achieved what we achieved, it seemed to me that it was time to leave,” he told BBC Sport.
“What else can we do? You can go again and try to win it again and again, but I’ve always had the experience of working abroad, working internationally, challenging myself in a different way.
“Family is also very important to me. Our daughter Poppy-Rose was two years old at the time, and it was the best time to do this while she is young and adaptable. It meant that she could have this experience, and together with the huge support of my wife Leah, we could create fantastic family memories.”
Jurgen Klopp and his coaching staff decided to sign new contracts with the club last year, but there is growing excitement among those behind the scenes.
Kingston, who in his current role helped Morocco become the first African country to reach the World Cup semi-finals last year, also detailed how he encouraged ball-playing players to help Liverpool gain an advantage ahead of the Champions League semi-finals. with Barcelona in 2019.
This advice, of course, paid off: 15-year-old Oakley Cannonier, who is now the Reds’ under-21 striker, quickly passed the ball to Trent Alexander-Arnold before he helped Divock Origi. winner.
“We just lost 3-0 to Barcelona at Camp Nou in the first leg of the Champions League semi—final, beating them for the most part,” Kingston recalled.
“We left wondering how we ended up with such a score, but watching it, we remembered our last match on the 16th against Bayern Munich two months earlier.
“The Munich boys with the ball were like trained machines, quickly returning the ball to the game. After talking to their staff, we found out that this was a deliberate tactic; they wanted a fast rhythm so that we wouldn’t have the opportunity to put pressure on them.
“In Barcelona it was the opposite, the boys with the ball were very slow. It takes a minute for a goal kick, from 30 to 45 seconds for a free kick.
“Looking back, we see that it was intentional. Barcelona were a team that approached a slower pace of play rather than something that fueled Jurgen [Klopp’s] intensity.
“Therefore, the coaches and analysts, together with the equipment manager who looked after them during the matches at Anfield, took it upon themselves to show our bollocks a video about how they can help the team.
“We told them they were the 12th person, that they weren’t watching the game, they were in the game.”
“Ultimately, all the credit is attributed to the players. They make a decision on the pitch and seize the moment.
“Whether it would have been [the goal] without our intervention, you never know, but you like to think that maybe you planted that seed and played a small role in the historical moment.”
