Manchester City target former Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool duo for first-team coaching roles | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola and Manchester City have identified two former Liverpool employees as potential additions to their backroom staff ahead of the new season.

It comes after a trio of exits from the existing first-team coaching structure were confirmed by the Etihad Stadium club in a statement earlier this week, marking the start of a significant summer of expected change across the board.

Juanma Lillo was the first major name to exit following the expiry of his contract at Manchester City, having also expressed a desire to return to his home of Spain, while Inigo Dominguez left his position as a technical coach in the same circumstances.

Fellow assistant Carlos Vicens also left the club for a new opportunity, as he was announced as the new head coach at SC Braga and as such vacated his position alongside Guardiola, where he also held responsibility as a set-piece coach.

Now, Manchester City have began their search for new additions to replace the trio, and while stand-ins are expected to come from the Academy structure for the upcoming FIFA Club World Cup, permanent choices have now started to emerge from within the game.

According to the information of transfer market insider Fabrizio Romano, Kolo Touré and Pep Lijnders have emerged as two options that are now under consideration at Manchester City over joining Pep Guardiola’s backroom staff from next season.

Toure is widely known for his playing career as a central defender, and spent time at both the Etihad Stadium and Anfield between 2009 and 2016, before retiring as a Celtic player and moving into the coaching industry.

After working as an assistant coach for the Ivory Coast national team, Wigan Athletic, and Leicester City, the now 44-year-old secured his first managerial position as manager of the Latics in November 2022 before being sacked the following January.

Since then, Kolo Toure has returned to work as an assistant coach and currently operates at Manchester City as part of the youth set-up at the club and as such would be an easy promotion and integration into the first-team.

As for Pep Lijnders, the Dutchman is most widely known for the position he held as assistant manager under Jurgen Klopp throughout the German’s hugely successful time as Liverpool head coach.

The 42-year-old did spend a brief time away from Anfield as he pursued a senior managerial position with NEC Nijmegen, before returning to work under Klopp until his exit at the end of the 2023/24 season.

Lijnders has most recently been the manager on Red Bull Salzburg, but would part ways with the club at the halfway stage of the 2024/25 season after just 29 games in charge and the side chasing a 10-point deficit in the Austrian Bundesliga.