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Jurgen Klopp insists he won’t walk out on Liverpool as a result of the Super League fiasco, saying the ‘tough times’ mean he feels more responsible for the club than ever before.

Klopp’s Anfield future was uncertain anyway after a difficult season for the club. There have been suggestions that a lack of support from the board had left him disillusioned, with the lure of the Germany job tempting him to consider his options.

So when Liverpool announced on Monday that they will join up for a European Super League next season – an idea Klopp is vehemently against in principle – fresh questions were raised.

Speaking after his side’s 1-1 draw with Leeds, however, Klopp said: “I’m here as a football coach and a manager, and I will do that as long as people let me do that.

“I won’t resign because of this. If times get tougher, that makes me more likely to stay here. I feel responsible for the team, the club, and the relationship we have with the fans. “It’s a tough time, but I will try to help to sort it somehow.”

Speaking ahead of the game, Klopp had hit out at the plans which will see Liverpool join five clubs from England and three each from Spain and Italy as founding members of the Super League, which is set to rival the Champions League next season.

“The most important part of a football club is the supporters and the team. Nothing can get between that. I heard that there were banners being put down, but I didn’t understand that because the players didn’t do anything wrong. We want to qualify for the Champions League next year.

“We have to stick together. We have to show that nobody has to walk alone in these moments. There are things we have to sort obviously, but that has nothing to do with the football and nothing to do with the relationship between the supporters and the team.

“In tough times, you have to stick together. That doesn’t mean you have to agree on everything, but the boys didn’t do anything wrong.”

In an unprecedented moment for European football, 12 top clubs from across the continent – including the Premier League’s big six – have announced the formation of a new midweek competition to rival UEFA’s Champions League.

Milan, Arsenal, Atlético Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Inter, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur have all joined as so-called founding clubs, with Los Blancos president Florentino Perez, Juve chairman Andrea Agnelli and Man Utd co-chairman Joel Glazer evidently big players in the shake-up.

Three more clubs are expected to join The Super League, which will start ‘as soon as practicable’.

The announcement and earlier revelations about the potential proposals have sent shockwaves through the football world and been met with profound outrage on social media, with many pointing to the greed of football clubs in the modern era to the detriment of fans.

Others unsurprisingly focused on the fact that north London rivals Arsenal and Tottenham probably shouldn’t be considered among Europe’s top clubs at present…

Nothing about The Super League was safe from serious scrutiny, will some tweeters pointing out that the competition’s logo is a bit…naff.

An official statement even had the audacity to go into the financial benefits of the newly-founded competition, saying the Super League ‘will provide significantly greater economic growth and support for European football via a long-term commitment to uncapped solidarity payments which will grow in line with league revenues’.

The new league would comprise 20 teams: 15 founding members who cannot be relegated, and five teams who qualify annually. It wouldn’t replace the Premier League or other domestic competitions, however – it would run alongside, similarly to how the Champions League currently works.

A statement revealed the competition would start in August, with clubs participating in two groups of ten, playing home and away fixtures, with the top three in each group automatically qualifying for the quarter finals.

Teams finishing fourth and fifth will then compete in a two-legged play-off for the remaining quarter-final positions. A two-leg knockout format will be used to reach the final at the end of May, which will be staged as a single fixture at a neutral venue.

Just 24 hours on from the confirmation there would be two English sides in the final four of the Champions League, there’ll now also be two English sides in the semi-finals of the Europa League.

Both Manchester United and Arsenal progressed through to the next round of Europe’s secondary competition following impressive wins over Granada and Slavia Prague respectively.

Before the games had even kicked off the drama had begun as Slavia refused to take the knee – in the same week their teammate Ondrej Kudela was banned for ten matches for racially abusing Glen Kamara. You can probably tell what Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette thought of the decision…

Manchester United already had one foot in the semi-final as they kicked off at Old Trafford following their 2-0 win in Spain last week, and it took just six minutes for any Granada hope of an emphatic comeback to be extinguished.

Over in Prague, Emile Smith Rowe’s early disallowed goal for a marginal offside decision will have had Arsenal fans all over the world looking at each other with fear in their eyes, as if to say, ‘oh no, it’s not one of those nights is it’.

They shouldn’t have had any such worries, as Nicolas Pepe opened the scoring just minutes after Smith Rowe had been denied.

Right, exactly the start Arsenal needed, but the tie was still hanging in the balance and it was going to take a really rigid, disciplined display to ensure their semi-final place was in the bag.

Arsenal’s frontline had other ideas…

If the gunners were anticipating a second-half fightback from the home side as they desperately tried to claw their way back into the contest, then they were in for a big surprise.

Slavia offered very little going forward – despite needing four goals if they were to progress – and Arsenal took complete control of the game before Lacazette put the cherry on top of a professional display out on in Prague.

With United polishing off their tie after a late own goal put them 4-0 ahead on aggregate, thoughts soon turned to the semi-final ties and beyond…