Jurgen Klopp's original exit plan has already changed once and former Liverpool striker Emile Heskey thinks it could be subject to another tweak as talk surrounding his future continues.
The Reds had endured a difficult start to the season, but after a handsome 7-1 away win over Rangers was followed by a vital 1-0 victory against Manchester City, the mood around Anfield has drastically improved. Despite this, some still question just how much longer Klopp will remain in the Liverpool hot seat.
Ex-Reds midfielder Dietmar Hamann raised eyebrows when he appeared to suggest the time for Klopp's departure could be approaching to talkSPORT. "At some stage, I think we will have that discussion about the manager and I'm not sure how far we are off that," he claimed.
Those same comments prompted a fiery response from the Reds boss when they were put to him in a recent pre-match presser, as he sarcastically quipped: "Oh great. A fantastic source, well respected everywhere," once he'd discovered Hamann was behind the comments.
Klopp is prone to a sudden change of heart when it comes to his future. In March of this year, he explained his exit intentions as he revealed: "The plan at the moment is to get to 2024 and then, 'Thank you very much'.
"I love what I do, but I said a couple of times that there must be something else out there in the world, apart from always thinking about very skilled, good-looking, fantastically nice football players!"
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Just two months later, however, he'd penned an extension until the summer of 2026. This sees Klopp currently tied to the club, at least in theory, for another four years. That's not to suggest an early exit isn't something that could happen, should results rapidly decline there's every chance the Anfield hierarchy takes action.
Alternatively, Klopp is likely to have enough credit in the bank to be able to walk away whenever he feels he has taken Liverpool as far as he can. Some felt that is exactly what he was alluding to when he claimed the club needed to 'reinvent' themselves in the wake of defeat away at Napoli.
With all that being said, Heskey has claimed that in light of this upturn in results Klopp could actually stay for longer than his current contract allows.
"I don't think Jurgen Klopp would leave Liverpool," the former Red told Gambling.com. "You've seen him come into the club, galvanise it and start from a position where defensively it wasn't right. He needed it to be much better at the back.
"What he did then was, he started to build up his defence and got them to understand how he wanted them to play.
"He might have to go back to that now with Liverpool and build it all over again. It could be as much as a five-year plan, so inevitably he could look at that and stay for another five years because he'll want to build it up again.
"Klopp is not under any pressure at Liverpool, and I don't believe he'll be putting any pressure on himself to walk away from this project either."
