The Hunt for Klopp’s Successor

From what I saw, Peeters is someone who takes important (and leading) part on the pitch for warming up, etc. Something Kornmayer does here, not Schlumberger.

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I agree, that’s another way to look at it , but I fear somewhere it points to some bit of mediocrity setting in. You would rather not have top professionals , because they may possess the better argument to challenge you.

Something like this happens so often in jobs. The director/managers will never prefer to hire top talents , as they are scared of the talent surpassing them or taking over their own position. They would rather prefer to hire talent, which they know will never thrive to excel over you. I have seen this sort of thing , so often happening at my workplace.

It will be interesting to see, how everybody in this whole model works, when the going gets tough. My fear is about the accountability will always fall on the coach, because the 2 guys sitting at the top are best buddies :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:.

I really really hope it all works out well for the best of the club. That’s all I ask for. My fears can go to a pit ,if it all goes perfect. The environment to thrive is definitely there in this club, it’s upto them to make it all work.

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Don’t forget that Edwards and Hughes are accountable towards Gordon, who now knows a thing or two about the club and football in general. If they fuck up, their heads will be served on a plate for JW Henry’s breakfast.

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Who are these top professionals? I look out across the footballing landscape and theres no one out there that particularly inspires me as somone I’d want as manager.

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How much time do you think they will give it if the start is a bit bumpy? I have a bit of a queasy feeling about our next squad, as there are wild rumors that Edwards wants to get rid of all the Klopp signings and everyone over 30. It’s probably just scaremongering, but I don’t find the idea of ​​losing Mo, Virgil, Robbo and Ali that encouraging. I’ll keep trying to ignore it, but I find it difficult enough to accept Klopp’s departure.

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Schulumberger is off? Assume, regardless of who fits in where, job titles themselves don’t marry up.

The announcement in Jan only mentioned Lijnders Krawietz, and Matos as the outgoings, albeit I know others have been moving on.

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Which big personalities would those be?
There is a dearth of good proven managers that are currently available. Two that are - Tuchel and Mourinho have provded to be somewhat toxic.

I didn’t wanted to get into this debate on who those candidates could be, as people here are very knowledgeable to second guess those names. But, if you really want to hear it , here are a few which might have been available had we gone all our for them:

Simone Inzaghi
Zidane
Unai Emery
Luciano Spaletti
Thiago Motta
Nagelsmann
Allegri
Diego Simeone

One more unpopular one, than the two you mentioned. Conte … :joy:

Liverpool Manager, is not a job that many people will be willing to reject, and this list has some very good managers with a similar playing mentality (Motta, Nagelsmann, Inzaghi and Spaletti).

Now, the question begs why were we never even linked strongly with either of those personalities mentioned above. And, no reliable journos said we are even trying for that sort of quality. It was either Alonso, Amorim , and then Slot .

Let’s be honest, Alonso’s name was also primarily mentioned because of him having a connection with the club previously. This was his first full season as a manager. If his head would have turned and he would faded in the league challenge, alot of people would have even had second thoughts on him.

I am welcoming “Slot” with open arms . It’s just it feels to me like the guys at the top wanted a personality who will not question them or their arguments.

There are obviously two ways to look at it, my take is one and the other one is like what Mascot mentioned . It’s a double edged sword …let’s just hope this turns out the best for the club.

I think it is people jumping to conclusions. No doubt players will leave and those around 30 will have tougher standards to meet to get longer deals but I think it is unlikely there will be an overnight culling.

However, there may be players who choose to leave because of an expectation around contracts once they are hitting 30, which may speed the process up.

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Yeah it’s all guesswork - no one has a clue.

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Re the next squad and shipping on the older players - Edwards may well want that, but it won’t happen overnight, and it’s also a pretty natural progression of a squad, whereby older players move on and younger ones come through/are bought.

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Virgil and Ali aren’t going anywhere.

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https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1784949051068203174

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Shouldn’t.

But Edwards might want to have a tighter rein on contract status.

The only one on that list that appeals to me is Emery. The rest all have compelling reasons why you wouldn’t appoint them.

The biggest issue though is that Liverpool are consciously trying to move away from the idea of a totemic figurehead manager, because even if you do get a really good one (like Klopp) they eventually leave or get sacked and it’s a massive hole to fill, the new one needs a new squad, it’s massively disruptive etc.

The aim is the create a structure and philosophy that you you can plug a new head coach into when you need to, without the disruption.

I’m optimistic and hopeful, not least because I don’t want the club to be in the position of waiting for the next Klopp to turn up. Who knows when that would be? I’d rather the brains recruit a manager that fits us rather than hire a manager and shape the club around him.

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We’d move mountains to find another Klopp or for him to continue until 2026, make no mistake about that. The period with Klopp with not enough people above him certainly wasn’t the plan. I was hoping we would sort this out sooner, with Klopp still being here and if he turned things around from last summer (like he did), continue on his path as it was planned until the end.

Let’s not confuse different things here. Klopp is not a dictator from the past. Klopp was brilliant for us and we’d do it again with a similar figure from this summer on, I have no doubt about that. Are they difficult to find and are the options limited this summer? Yes, they are. Does finding another Klopp or a similar type of calibre means we wouldn’t have a “structure” in place or “philosophy”? No, it doesn’t.

I don’t see Slot as being a totally different idea, more suited for a structure or philosophy than Klopp, like it’s black and white. We also just have to get to know him, a few minutes in English from YouTube and a few fancy anecdotes isn’t enough. Let’s see what he’s made of as a coach and a character. Pretty sure he has something about him, that was likely one of the things that made him attractive to us.

Does the club want to improve certain things like incoming transfers, looking at our success in recent windows? Absolutely understandable if that’s our aim. They will work together, perhaps only changing a little bit more, having more checks upstairs over certain targets.

How would it work if we want someone able as a coach, to have enough personality to be at Liverpool, but also keep quiet? Doesn’t work like that, that’s just lazy stuff for articles.

We couldn’t plan all of this when Klopp took over in 2015. We knew he had ability and charisma, but that’s also a question for Liverpool, a club that generally hasn’t won nowhere near enough in modern times. History still bigger than our success in the last 30+ years. It’s absolutely fine what he’s leaving, we’re not in a United 2013 situation.

Will it be easy? No, it won’t. But let’s not make things more radical than they are.

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@Mascot I sort of buy that argument, but think its just kicking the can down the road. What happens when Edwards gets bored/tired and walks away? Same with Hughes? None of these are easy positions to fill and come with a pressure and workload that wear people down. So think the rationale is less about allowing transitions to occur more seamlessly and more a recognition of the size of the modern job and trying to put in a place a structure that makes sure that all areas of the football operation are covered.

Other than the title, what is being implied by the language being used is not really too far what Klopp was hired into and he was seemingly happy to work in. There is definitely a story that has been crafted that tells of a power struggle that developed in which the manager took increasingly broad control across different areas of the club. Edwards will know how true that is, but I think even if he rejects it as false he will be aware of the perception and so is likely conscious of making sure that all the new hires are on the same page about the structure - we are hiring a replacement for the 2015 Klopp, not the 2023 version who operated without a sporting director. Given Edwards has seen his this structure work very well before, with a manager who was an engaged stakeholder in the things Edwards was responsible for, I would be surprised if he wanted to move away from that model and have a coach who is dictated to and gets what he is given. So I suspect this language is just an attempt to clarify who is, in business speak, responsible for which decisions and who is accountable, and consulted on them.

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We cannot talk about moving away from “Klopp’s dictatorship” (which isn’t) only to give so much power to another guy or two, higher up and away from the football pitch.

It doesn’t make sense, but it wasn’t even said that way in the articles so far, so I’m hopeful it won’t even be like that.

There’s a difference between having a football person upstairs and just handing over power from one side to another.

A bit more control and ability upstairs? Yeah, we bloody need it, because our dealings weren’t great and we couldn’t find someone else, not named Michael Edwards.

But I don’t expect radical changes in terms of how we work. The rest, time will tell. Slot’s influence also might raise with time and hopefully success. All that is absolutely normal, regardless if his title is manager, head coach, interim coach, club mascot.

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Lets be honest Klopp is a huge personality that will probably dominate any room he’s in at the time.

For me, no one else out there comes close to that. So you may as well restructure to allow a new in coming coach to get all the support available in a world where everything is analysed to the 10th decimal point.

Minimal disruption wins out for me by transititioning to familiar squad building peocesses and a manager with similar footballing philosophies.

Its also not lost on me that the greatest era this club had was built on succession planning with each incoming manager being well versed in the clubs play style etc.

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Spreading responsibilities makes it easier to replace one cog of the machine when needed, without disrupting the whole thing.

It seems we can trust FSG to continue being decent stewards of the club.

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