Dundalis

For the Liverpool top job, I expect trophies, or be HUGELY exceeding expectations at a lower club. Like significantly. I don't care what the excuses are. Lot's of shit managers had nice little spells with mid table clubs, that doesn't make you suitable for Liverpool. One of those shit managers took over United after Fergie left. So basically, if you haven't won anything, over achieve like fuck at your mid table club, and keep over achieving. Or stay away. I get the risks with Xabi, with Gerrard a recent example of an appointment that could have gone horribly wrong, but not only is he doing the grossly over achieving at a mid table club part, he's got genuine connections to the club, since personality should IMO be a huge part of the recruitment. If Xabi wins the Bundesliga, there should literally be only one interview booked. I don't think any of these mid table EPL managers who've had zero actual success, only a nice bit of form with some mid table clubs while playing some nice football should be seriously considered. In fact the only EPL manager I even remotely like for the job is Postecoglu, because I genuinely think he has the charisma, and personality for it. That's about it.

What do you mean you never know? There's literally zero reason to state that you are leaving now of all times if there is any remote consideration whatsoever for staying. It's basically the same as people coming out and saying Klopp will change his mind if we win the quadruple and stay. People don't say they are leaving mid season, potentially interrupting the teams vibe and causing a media shit storm for shits and giggles. They are all gone, end of, and we will be replacing the entire staff.

He plays attacking football now? Played predominantly with a back 5, and his Brighton team never scored over 42 goals in a season, the season after he left, De Zerbi's team scores 72. He wasn't a park the bus manager sure, but there was nothing particularly attacking about his playstyle. Not only did he fail at Chelsea, his tactical style is a far larger departure than it would be with Alonso or De Zerbi.

Basically where you hopefully put the trust in the team that had Ancelotti and Klopp as the best candidates 9 years ago. They had their analytics down pretty well then, hopefully they repeat that process again to where it's a purely analytical process that avoids any emotional bias that ties us to people simply because they have links to the club.

I would say the Scottish league had not been a two horse race at all for an entire decade, since prior to Gerrard winning the league it had been 9 years straight of Celtic wins. Even after they got back up to the Premiership, they weren't really anywhere close to Celtic in terms of points tallies and actually challenging, despite mostly finishing 2nd or 3rd until Gerrard got them over the line. He also played a very entertaining style of football. The major issue with Gerrard, which was something that was only really evident after he went to Aston Villa, and Michael Beale left, is that it was Beale who was considered the tactical mastermind behind Gerrard's teams style of play at Rangers, and when Beale left to take up a managerial position, the style of play and identity he brought to Rangers, seemed to basically disappear at Villa. Which means Gerrard likely never really had his own identity of how his team should play, he brought Beale and a bunch of others from the Liverpool setup who did a lot of that work for him. He also seems to be the type of manager who isn't really capable of managing different personality types. If you think back to Gerrard as a player, he was always the loner type from what I remember, obviously a great leader as a captain, but he didn't make many friends easily that he stayed close with. Just not that type of personality. So you have a manager without a clear style of play that was offset by a tactically astute assistant, and who is a rigid man manager, you have a big problem. Alonso probably won't have the same problems that Gerrard had if you had to guess, but we just don't really know enough, because Alonso simply hasn't yet had to deal with any adversity to where we can see what his weaknesses might be. He's doing it in in a better league obviously, which gives you more comfort, but I don't really think the risk is that much smaller, there simply isn't any information about whether Alonso is capable of handling managing a club this size, or how he will handle adversity. It's all probablies, or maybes, which is what people would have said if Gerrard took over after his Rangers stint. Personally, even though he likely isn't being considered, I'd love for the club to go after Postecoglu, but that's because as an Aussie, Im familiar with his managerial style, and he's one of the few managers that I know of where his number one quality is his charismatic personality and elite man management skills. i.e. he brings the charismatic interpersonal stuff to the job that Klopp brought, while having a clear style, as opposed to simply being a tactically obsessed manager like a lot of the managers we are being linked to. But that would also obviously still be a big risk.

The problem here is timeframe though. You can pick and choose. If you pick a timeframe that's just after Gerrard won the Scottish league with Rangers, he had two successful years to start his managerial, people would say it's the logical progression. The timing has meant we were able to wait in order to see Gerrard fail after that. The timeframe means we aren't going to see what Alonso does after two successful years to start his managerial career.

Wut wut?

Not sure why no one is mentioning Ange Postecoglu. I'd be very happy with Xabi obviously, but a former great player who has had a good start to his career based on other recent examples is still a huge risk. I get Ange hasn't really got an incredible resume either but he's very experienced. But primarily, he has a clear style of play, he's a fantastic communicator, but numero uno is his best managerial quality is he's an elite man manager who's a dominant force of personality, and that's something he shares stylistically with Klopp. De Zerbi is more tactically obsessed even though I'm sure he's a good man manager, but Lallana clarified the difference between him and Klopp.

Assuming he signs a reasonably lengthy contract which I doubt we'd be interested if he didn't, I'd be fine with that tbh, as unlike with PSG, we'd get a huge transfer fee.

While I agree about the concerns around attitude and application, the stepping stone part doesn't make much logical sense. Mbappe is not at a point in his career that requires a stepping stone pathway. That's for players who are early on in their career's who have world class talent but haven't reached that world wide status, to where the biggest clubs might not yet want to risk the investment, so a player joins a stepping stone club to cement their value. Mbappe is well past that and can literally join any club he wants to, there's no reason for him to not join his final destination club right now at his age and status in the game. He simply doesn't fit the type of player Liverpool usually acquires, but I do think the attention and sponsorships etc would help pay for whatever exorbitant fees we would have to cover to bring him in, and I also think someone like Klopp is making him aware of the requirements work rate wise to play for Liverpool. I also think that while Salah isn't useless with tracking back, some people don't realise that he does and always has gotten a lot of leeway to where his defensive work rate has always been significantly less than the other forwards, and this has been allowed because of what he provides offensively. If Klopp doesn't like his attitude, I think he would quash the transfer before it happens anyway, they would obviously have lengthy discussions before he'd sign any contract with us. Chances he signs are probably like 1%, but I don't really see too much downside in going after him. He will pay for himself given his worldwide popularity and the income that would bring, and if he joins it means Klopp is ok with his fit which should give some comfort around any dressing room disharmony. If he doesn't work out we would get an enormous fee for him. Liverpool's counter attack with Mo and Mbappe on either side of someone like Nunez might be the most electric and ridiculous counter attacking unit the EPL has ever seen.

I lot of people talking about replacements in the future for Salah, including targeting players who would need transitioning to LW over from RW. How about playing our own versatile players there? Jota had a few games where he didn't look great at RW, but IMO there is zero reason why a Jota or Gakpo couldn't transition to that position every bit as well as any of the suggested targets. The only one who really fits perfectly well as a left footed RW replacement that is producing at a high level right now would be Saka, but we'd prob have to give the entire fee we get from Salah to even tempt Arsenal IMO given he's 22, english and arguably their best player. It's of some of the other names who are either just potential or aren't really pure RW, I'd transition our existing forwards to RW, sure up other areas of the team, and also have a bit of a go at Evan Ferguson. Obviously we are stocked there, but if you have Jota and Gakpo now covering RW as well as LW, you have more room, and if he looks like being the new Rooney/Kane, I don't know if you pass up a player of that talent, that young who will be home grown. It's going to be difficult enough to fill the home grown quota with players that we can actually acquire and will be good enough to play for us, if you can get one who might be a generational type I think you need to do it if you can.

Basically this. For other players its the financial offer of a lifetime that they would likely never get again if they don't take it now. Mo will be the biggest recruit possible for a team in that part of the world now or in the future, and IMO him and his agents lack of desperation to leave shows they know the stupid money on offer will be there whether it's now, next summer or even 2-3 years from now because of his standing in that part of the world.

I don't think people understand what they are saying when they talk about Salah and his output. Salah had 46 goals contributions in all competitions last season. 46. 30 goals, 16 assists. As an apparent "shadow" of his former self. The idea that you can cope just fine minus that is laughable. No one in the EPL gets those kinds of total goal contributions in a supposed bad season, no one even gets near that in a great season apart from one or two. Now you might say well much of those contributions will be recouped by whoever we decide to play in that position or spread across the team. If we for example were to play Szoboazlai there, and he gets even half those goal contributions across the season, that would be an incredible effort, but I wouldn't expect that. You aren't just going to spread 46 goal contributions across the team or anything really close to it. It would be an enormous loss of offensive firepower. Replacing Salah moving forward will easily be the biggest challenge the board will face in the Klopp era.

I think the problem is the phrase "do a job". If this team was settled defensively maybe you could handle a "makeshift" backline protector for any length of time. I don't think we have the luxury of having someone that can "do a job" right now. That said I think Endo, based on his defensive stats is comparable to other good DM's in the league and can hold that spot short term, but we really can't afford injuries there. I like the Andre links for January, and I still think we need a 6 for the future (Bacjetic is promising but you need more than one), but I'm more interested in a CB to finish the window.

He's a player who flatters to deceive. He's completely lackadaisical on the pitch. He's like the opposite of Szoboslai in that regard. Undisciplined in his positioning and constantly mistimes tackles. The flatters to deceive part is where he sometimes looks fantastic on the ball, he can go past 3 men effortlessly. Or course then he will mis-control a simple pass, and look all gangly getting the ball caught in his feet and lose possession. Same with passing, he can hit a good one then completely mishit one. Also doesn't really have much end product in terms of goal contributions. His best position is easily as the support player in the double pivot, because he isn't good enough defensively as a 6, and he isn't consistent with a good enough engine or good enough end product to really be a very good 8. Not sure if we are gonna change things around to accommodate that though. Right now he kinda seems like a much taller Naby Keita, but without the high level engine. I feel like this is a transfer where they are looking at it because we can potentially get him on the cheap. There's obviously potential in there, but I think he needs a few years of work minimum to be anything like a consistent player. I doubt he's gonna be much of a difference maker for us anytime soon and I could see him barely getting much playing time this season.