Jurgen Klopp has offered an insight into his working relationship with the club's sporting director Michael Edwards, describing it as a "brilliant" one.
Edwards’ standing his risen rapidly over the last few seasons at Anfield, despite the former Portsmouth man often shunning the spotlight that is occasionally reserved for high-profile football directors in the Premier League.
A key to Liverpool’s impending £7.25million deal for Takumi Minamino in January was said to centre around Edwards’ good relationship with his Red Bull Salzburg counter-part Christoph Freund, and the Reds are expected to formally complete the deal when the window opens.
Edwards has worked at Liverpool since 2011 after taking up a role as head of performance analysis before he was appointed director of technical performance.
He was then made technical director in August 2015 before working closely with Klopp upon his arrival at Melwood a few months later.
It is under Klopp where the University of Sheffield graduate has become known as an integral part of the behind-the-scenes operation at Melwood.
Edwards' reputation has soared among Liverpool supporters over the past three years due to his role in helping bring a string of world-class operators to the club to help turn Klopp's Reds into European champions.
A crucial element of the 40-year-old's high-regard from supporters is also his ability to extract full value for outgoing players in the transfer market with Liverpool receiving sizable sums for players like Dominic Solanke (£19m), Danny Ings (£20m) and Mamadou Sakho (£26m) over the past few years.
Speaking about his relationship with the sporting director, Klopp said Edwards and his analytics department were doing a "sensational job" in continuing to unearth high-quality players capable of improving the club.
"[The relationship] is brilliant, absolutely brilliant," he said. "Mike Gordon (FSG president) is here [in Liverpool] at the moment as everyone knows!
"It is a very good relationship, his whole department is doing a sensational job. It was an easy decision making at these times in Liverpool.
"It is good. It is all based on a lot of thought, he is a very thoughtful person and we don’t have to always have to have the same opinion from the first second of a conversation but we finish pretty much all the talks with the same opinion. Or similar opinions.
"That is all good. It is really great working together. All the relationships we have created over the years, all the time we have spent together, it was important."
Confirmation of Klopp's new Liverpool contract and the 52-year-old will now remain at Anfield for a further two seasons, taking his total time at the club up to nine years.
The Liverpool manager, who will now stay at Anfield until 2024, hinted that he would be happy to end his career on Merseyside after inking the fresh terms on the deal he signed originally back in October 2015.
"It was actually when the club asked me and I thought then about the contract and I thought then about ending," he added.
"I couldn’t imagine that I would leave. That was the moment I thought I don’t see that I will leave. Then we can start thinking about how long do I want to stay?
"I have no clue how long it will be in the end but it was not possible for me to imagine that I would leave in 2022 because of the people we have and created here.
"It is maybe not the 100 per cent the smartest way to plan a career but for me it is the only way I can do it. If in the end I only had three clubs then I had sensational clubs at least and that would be OK for me."
