Pep Lijnders reveals he BEGGED Jurgen Klopp to play Trent Alexander-Arnold in midfield... as Liverpool assistant promised 'you can have all my f****** salary' to persuade reluctant Reds boss

Pep Lijnders reveals he begged Jurgen Klopp to push Trent Alexander-Arnold into a hybrid midfield role at Liverpool - even pledging to give him 'all my f****** salary' to try it out. 

Alexander-Arnold has thrived with being shifted into the middle of the park when Liverpool are on the ball.  

Without diminishing Klopp's tactical nous, it's fair to say Lijnders was often as the brains behind the German's extraordinary reign on Merseyside. 

He joined the club in 2014 to coach the Under-16s side but when Klopp arrived in 2015 he saw something in the Dutchman and promoted him to the first-team set-up. 

Now he has explained that he convinced Klopp to put Alexander-Arnold in midfield when Roberto Firmino left because they needed another man in the middle of the park. Darwin Nunez, he knew, was not going to drop in and be a ball-winner in the event Liverpool lost the ball. 

'My idea constantly was: the best No. 6 I had in the U16s was Trent Alexander-Arnold,' Lijnders told The Redmen TV.

'It's not to only have extra players inside, to have four here (in the midfield), to have the same as what Bobby Firmino did. 

'But it's also to have Trent in a position where the ball can fly from left to right.

'What I said constantly to Jurgen was: "We have to do it." 

'But Pep, blah blah blah" [Klopp complained]. "We have to do it."

'Until I was so sick of it that I went to Jurgen in this office and said, "Jurgen, next year you can f****** have all my f****** salary. If we don't do it in the next game, it's done for me. I can't.

'We need the extra player, we need Trent there. I tell you it will work, it will work.'

For Lijnders, this was as much a defensive move as it was an attacking one, getting Liverpool in a state of preparation to respond quickly if they lost the ball.

'If you lose the ball, you have players close to each other,' he said.

'We had only three players [in midfield]. Darwin is not a player to drop deep like that, Lucho can do it but [he’s] a winger and Mo, no.

'So now who becomes the extra player there? We can buy a Cody Gakpo to try and do it like that, but he’s a left [winger].

'We can find a different solution, but you’re searching because you have a game every three days.'

Lijnders will take up a role with Austrain Bundesliga side Red Bull Salzburg ahead of next season.