A possible dark horse is Thiago Motta. The former Brazil and Italy midfielder is currently in charge of Bologna, who lie fourth in Serie A. He obviously lacks the top level experience we are probably looking for, but his footballing philosophy sounds intriguing:
“My idea is to play offensively. A short team that controls the game, high pressure and a lot of movement with and without the ball. I want the player that has the ball to always have three or four solutions and two teammates close by to help. The difficulty in football is, often to do things simply but to control the base, pass and get free. I don’t like the numbers of the field because they trick you. You can be super offensive with a 5–3–2 and defensive in a 4–3–3. Depending on the quality of the guys. I had a game a while ago where the two full-backs ended up playing as the 9 and 10. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like people like Samuel and Chiellini, born defenders. Could it be a 2–7–2? No, the goalkeeper counts as one of the midfield seven. For me, the attacker is the first defender and the goalkeeper is the first attacker. The goalkeeper starts the play, with his feet and the attackers are the first to put pressure to recover the ball.”
Currently 20-1 with the bookies, so I’ve had a few quid on him.
Some gossip about Nagelsmann, knowing the English media, they probably would have a field day with some of his antics if he would become our manager tbh
He is a bit of a hipster, not sure how that would fit in tbf
But atm I don’t think he’s quite so bad anymore, he’s improved a bit since he became German national coach (after his first international match, all Germany talked about was the shirt he was wearing (checkered lumberjack shirt)
It’s the first part of a 6 part series of the best up and coming managers. Of the others covered, Michel and and Fonseca you’d think would be candidates for step ups soon, but would be the darkest of dark horses for us.
There was someone I was trying to think of yesterday who I’d read a piece about recently as a former top pro quietly making a name for himself, but for the life of me cannot remember who is was about. My recollection was an Argentinian who has an association with Real, but all I could think of was Santi Solari and it is definitely not him (he’s been shit), and was not Redondo (he’s too cool to be bothered with football post retirement) so cannot figure out who it was. I’m now coming around the conclusion that I made it all up.
For all the interest there was in Iraola before he went to Bournmouth, I wonder if he’d have been a dark horse for us had we not already have picked up his former boss (youd imagine Hughes will be uninterested in bringing people with him)
I grew up watching (and depending on) Gerrard to pull us over the line (so many times). He had his impact on LFC and had his time aligned with Klopp’s (and FSG’s) tenure, boy it would have been interesting. I really hated seeing him decline.
It’s irrecoverable imo. I always detested the idea of him becoming Liverpool manager, I can’t put my finger on exactly why, more of a strong feeling with some reasoning about his character that might or might not be true.
Had Gerrard built on his great start at Rangers to do well at Villa, something along the lines of what Emery is doing, there would be a clamour for him to become Liverpool manager. And rightly so.
But he wasn’t very good at Villa! And the contrast in level with Emery is stark.
Since then Stevie has gone to Saudi, and has moved to the periphery of the affections of many fans because of it. He also appears to have a penchant for hanging out with other unsavory characters closer to home.
We have been lucky in that regard. We dodge a bullet with BR not winning the title, and dodged a bullet with SG being exposed as a journeyman manager at best. I probably have some major bias on this, but deep down wondered if JK was ok with SG leaving for Rangers as he didn’t think he would make it as a Liverpool manager.
If I was looking for a career in management, I would keep so close to Jurgen so I could smell his farts, just incase they imparted some wisdom my way.
Jurgen is always happy for staff/players to leave for opportunities. He just doesn’t come across as the sort ro stand in their way; regardless whether what he privately thinks.
It’s a genuinely wild thought I have had lots of times. Without the slip we win the title in 13-14 and even accounting for the fact that BR might have been even mroe difficult to work with in the aftermath with the enlargement of his ego, he surely buys himself more time than he ultimately got from FSG and almost certainly results in us losing out on the opportunity to hire Klopp.
Interesting post about Motta’s philosophy, he is certainly thinker, if he can get that into managing a club,you’d have to rate him as a dark horse,a bit more experience and he might be hard to snare.
. He looked quite dapper in his checkered jacket.