Liverpool Don’t Need A Tactical Clone of Jürgen Klopp, And Must Not Just Use Data

FREE READ: The Reds must be holistic in their approach (and probably pick Xabi Alonso)

I’m saving my own personal insights into Jürgen Klopp, what he means to me – and his legacy – until later in the season, for a proper farewell. (And a return to more paywalled material.)

But to keep myself optimistic and to see hope beyond that horizon, I’m focusing on where the Reds can go after he leaves. I still believe that Xabi Alonso is the most logical, box-ticking choice, and will counter some suggestions that he’s not.

I also want to focus on tactical fit, and using data to help select the next manager. I want Liverpool to get this right, as losing Klopp is yet one more reason to lose interest in football; so it needs someone to keep the fires in fans like me burning, as well as inspiring a new generation.

To me, the new manager should be chosen using data, analysis of tactics, but also emotion – as in the emotion the manager will rouse in the fans and the players.

There should be no sentimentality, but also, football is not just data, not just tactics, and not just personality and charisma.

Appointing Steven Gerrard, at this point, would be pure sentiment.

Appointing Xabi Alonso would be smart.

I co-wrote my first book analysing Liverpool with football data and analytics in 2006, before the advent of ‘Big Data’, and thus before data got so big and proprietorial it was impossible to keep up with the professionals (at the clubs) and access what they accessed.

In 2011 I pointed out that, on average, only half of transfers succeed, after analysing over 3,000 Premier League moves with football inflation factored in, via the database research with Graham Riley; the conclusion something that Dr Ian Graham expanded on far more recently, with the mathematics behind it why only half of transfers work.

So bar looking at referees and the weirdness in their decision balances, I don’t do really deep data analysis anymore, to the degree that clubs with millions of data points per game (and AI) do.

However, I still love data. I use it all the time. A lot is still accessible, but for me, it’s just a tool, and it’s on a simpler level. (And I may draw the wrong conclusions from it!)

If I’ve learnt anything these past nine years, it’s that data is only part of the story; just as tactics are only part of the story.

For Jürgen Klopp, the data didn’t matter if the player was a dickhead.

And data is only as good as the questions you ask of it. Man United famously used data to pick Aaron Wan-Bissaka from 804 right-backs, except they didn’t focus on the correct attributes. As the saying goes relating to inputs in computing, garbage in, Wan-Bissaka out.

Data doesn’t do press conferences. Data doesn’t fist-bump the Kop. Data doesn’t put an arm around a player who has been dropped, or give a hug to a teen about to make his debut. Data doesn’t get the players to go over the Anfield crowd after an early 2-2 draw against lowly West Brom. Data didn’t make the fans sing Klopp’s name. Data didn’t blow Barcelona away.

These intangibles may show up in a manager’s data via results, or underlying numbers; and, correctly, data was used to show that performances in Klopp’s final season at Dortmund were better than the results suggested.

But data wasn’t used on its own; Klopp impressed the hell out of FSG’s football head Mike Gordon, whom I was invited to meet later in 2015 to be told at the Titanic hotel in Liverpool, over a glass of bottled water (I was a cheap date), how Klopp was even better than they’d all hoped. Klopp’s people skills blew Gordon away, suggesting that Klopp could lead any institution.

I also know from conversations during his time at the club that Michael Edwards was never just into data.

Data and tactics are ideas that can exist in vacuums, without the reality of the person who has to make a collection of disparate humans (with all their flaws, moods, emotions, fluctuating fitness levels and personal lives) function as a team, on and off the field, for 10 months each year.

Tactics could tell people where to run. But won’t in themselves inspire them to run there, or to find the energy when they don’t have it, to bust a gut to get there.

In a recent article I used Iago Aspas as a great data spot, but the wrong player at the wrong time for the wrong manager. While the manager, Brendan Rodgers, didn’t want him, part of the problem is that Aspas didn’t feel good enough compared to the players ahead of him in the team, wasn’t physically ready, and couldn’t handle the pressure of his first Big Club move, which would end up his only Big Club move, but where he later played for Spain via a gentle introduction.

I don’t want a managerial Aspas, who is talented and ticks a lot of boxes, but who doesn’t understand the expectations at Liverpool and cannot handle the pressure. Not least, as we’re replacing Klopp here; this is not 2012, when the Reds had more of a blank slate, or 2015, when that experiment failed.

You won’t get another Klopp, but you don’t want to find a coach with ‘similar’ tactics who cannot translate that into results; who cannot handle the pressure; who says the wrong things, and looks frightened and defeated in press conferences; who won’t get his face on a flag as he is out of his depth from the start, and the players and fans can just smell it.

It’s like finding the next Mo Salah with data, but the lad you get who has the most similar data turns out to be homesick, likes a night on the lash, misses training, doesn’t have abs like a washboard, and has constant hamstring issues. Data-wise, when he played in Serie A, he was the mirror of Salah; but to put it crudely, he ain’t no fucking Mo Salah, is he?

Equally, Liverpool are right to use data to find Jürgen Klopp’s replacement, but the data has to be a) used in the right context, and b) and with an awareness of the human aspect of management, at a club as big and as steeped in managerial folklore as Liverpool.

It’s not just another job.

Sorry, but it isn’t.

You need to separate the emotion when making decisions, but Klopp showed how you also need to evoke emotions, stoke emotions. That Klopp was my choice in 2015 was based on his personality and his football. (I wouldn’t have minded Carlo Ancelotti, who was less suited to the squad, it seemed, but who would just do what he usually did and work a way to play his football with what he had. But Klopp felt more exciting, a better fit.)

The only emotions the awful Roy Hodgson evoked in terms of the Anfield crowd, after he insulted their intelligence and played an outdated mode of football, were for 10,000 people to stay away. Non-Liverpool fans never understood the problem, until he managed England.

Even if you’re can’t find another fist-pumping Teutonic maniac genius, you need to avoid someone who evokes negative emotions in the fans, and bores and silences Anfield.

That’s my fear. The clever-but-dull manager whose football leaves everyone cold; a manager no one cares for, and all the progress of the past nine years is lost.

Tactics

I really rate the Athletic’s John Muller’s work. He’s a great analyst.

However, I take issue with his piece below, albeit it’s worth reading for some good observations in amongst what I feel are wayward conclusions:

“Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen tactics and Liverpool’s squad are not a natural fit”

But to me, he’s missing the point in saying that Alonso isn’t a good tactical fit for Liverpool, as he’s being too literal.

Even a year ago, Jürgen Klopp wasn’t a good fit for the tactics that Jürgen Klopp now deploys and the players he has, as with tweaks and new players and emerging talent, so much has changed.

Liverpool don’t want a sub-Klopp clone who most closely matches the formation or passing structures of Liverpool’s play but can’t get those ideas across to better players at a bigger club, and who cannot communicate or handle the pressure.

Liverpool want a manager who plays modern, passing, attacking, dominating football; if that passing is shorter or longer, so be it.

(As I said yesterday, +60% possession seems key for all top teams in top leagues, rather than passing styles or speeds, even if they are important too. As long as it’s not 60% sterile possession, going sideways and backwards, but 60% or more with loads of chances created; but Muller admits that Leverkusen get the ball forward at speed, with short passes.)

If Alonso’s team plays the most short passes in European football, as Muller shows, then great.

He also notes that Maurizio Sarri loves short passing, but again, he was a cultural misfit at Chelsea. (As were Andre Villas-Boas and Graham Potter; Frank Lampard was a good cultural fit but crucially, not a good manager.)

Alonso is doing that with a load of players he didn’t buy. He’s giving a team an identity, and it’s a sign of great coaching.

Again, domination with the ball, and being able to win it back quickly. That’s all I’d look for, tactically.

That will lead to good results and good underlying numbers.

“The main problem for Liverpool, ironically enough, is that Alonso the coach doesn’t believe in long passes. He wants his team to play it short, on the grass and straight up the middle so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

First, I’d say that Alonso “not believing” in long passes as a manager is a statement relating to one set of players in one environment, and not an overall belief; unless Alonso has specifically stated he doesn’t believe in long passes, it’s a poor choice of words.

But even so, that style still sounds great. Sounds like Liverpool have the players, too.

Or do Liverpool have a load of one-dimensional, skill-less hoofers? Of course not.

This is not the Heavy Metal team of 2017; this has evolved into something far more glorious, expansive and versatile.

I don’t know Leverkusen’s players inside out, but most of them wouldn’t get near the Liverpool XI. They don’t have the skillsets. And Alonso is finding a way to get the most out of less-skilled players, and doing so an extraordinary degree.

If Alonso doesn’t have Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, Thiago (a team-mate at Bayern), or anyone comparable, then you can’t say how much long passing he will use, were he suddenly to have them?

Few back-line players can do what some of Liverpool’s back-line players can do in terms of long passing. Liverpool have two back-four quarterbacks in Alexander-Arnold and van Dijk.

To find a similar tactician to Klopp (aided by Pep Lijnders) with none of the charisma, Big Club experience, authority, and just go on tactics or data makes no sense. Klopp-lite would be a disaster.

The mentality, and overall approach is what matters; not fine details at this stage.

This is Liverpool – pressure, expectation, history. If you can’t handle those, you can be the world’s smartest coach and it’s no good.

And if you arrive without impressing the fans, it’s an uphill battle to start with. (Again, in 2012 it would have been less of a problem, when a reset was required. And in 2015, a new manager didn’t have to replace a living legend, as the next one does.)

Tactics are important. Clearly.

But ‘cultural’ fit is arguably more important, given that there are lots of clever managers out there, but few who could handle the pressure and convey their authority to the crowd and the players. That’s not cultural fit without tactical wisdom, either.

And by culture I mean playing style and connection with the fans.

Do Leverkusen play positive, winning football, with style?

Yes.

Is Xabi Alonso adored at Anfield?

Yes.

Would be he given far more time by fans and the media than a sub-par Klopp clone, or some little-known gem?

Yes.

Has Alonso impressed over not one but two seasons as a manager?

Yes.

Does he have a deep grounding in the game?

Yes.

You could give Pep Guardiola this Liverpool squad and it would not play the same way as Klopp has it play.

But vitally, with these players it wouldn’t play the exact same way a Guardiola team has ever played, just as this Man City team doesn’t even play the way a Guardiola team used to play.

Man City over the years have evolved several ways of playing under Guardiola that have switched emphasis to the point where he’s filled the team with big units who can dish out physicality, and changed players from one position to another, one formation to another; and gone from an insane PPDA (passes per defensive action) of around 6 as of half a decade ago (the lowest I’ve ever seen, with the lower the more intense the high press), up now to the Alonsoesque 12-13, whereas Liverpool this season around around 8-9.

It just means more pressing in midfield, less higher up.

I imagine City’s use of the long-ball has changed over time. If you have Ederson as your keeper, you have him play it longer.

Liverpool won’t try to get Pep Guardiola, obviously, and he wouldn’t want to leave City, obviously, but if he was a free agent right now and wanted the job (and didn’t have the Man City baggage), he’d be a great choice.

But his teams don’t play the exact same way that this Liverpool team plays.

This Liverpool Squad Can Play Various Ways

My issue at times with analytics is thinking that things are set in stone. No.

Every team is made up of XI utterly unique individuals (and 15 additional ones in the squad) within a different framework at a different time and place, playing in a different stadium to different fans with different expectations; each carrying different histories and skills and scars.

Trent Alexander-Arnold is fairly unique in world football. So is Mo Salah. And Virgil van Dijk. These are not cookie-cutter players.

There aren’t many like Thiago, when he’s fit, nor Dominik Szoboszlai, who runs like a sprinter, has the stamina of a horse, passes like a visionary and shoots like a Howitzer.

Not many clubs have five such different but thrilling attackers; and really, no one else is quite like Darwin Núñez, good and bad. (And Ben Doak, just turned 18 but injured, will be a superstar; as will Kaide Gordon if he can overcome two years of injury hell.)

You want different styles of midfielders, and I haven’t mentioned them yet?

There’s the Alonso-like Spanish teen, Stefan Bajcetic, who has a bit of the Steven Gerrard about him too. Passes long, but also reads the game beautifully and passes short, too. Gets stuck in. Having a bad year with growing pains, but that’s natural for teens.

There’s Alexis Mac Allister, who can play long or short – a proper player.

There’s Curtis Jones, who plays a lot of short stuff and keeps the ball with great care, excelling as a Velcro no.6 for England U21s in the summer, as most people’s player of the tournament. He can also dribble the ball 50 yards, and as I always say (and said of him before), his goalscoring ability at youth level will bleed through at senior level within a few years.

Harvey Elliott, still only 20, can do a bit of everything – busy, clever, fast-thinking, ideal for shorter passing, but can hit a lovely longer ball. (And like a lot of these players, he’s a specialist shooter from distance, unlike Joe Gomez.)

Ryan Gravenberch has a brilliant skillset, and at 21, is still adjusting to life in England, but shows moments of magic. His ability to turn out of tight spaces is amongst the best I’ve seen. He can drive forward with the ball, or lay it off. He’s played for Ajax, Bayern and the Netherlands, and now Liverpool, while only 21. That’s a lot of different ways of playing. He just needs to relax a bit, and get used to being hit at 100mph by flying tackles.

Wataru Endo is a win-it/give-it-short specialist. No fuss.

As such, that’s Mac Allister, Szoboszlai, Jones, Thiago, Bajcetic, Elliott, Endo and Gravenberch, from which you can forge any kind of midfield; and there are more youngsters coming through, including James McConnell (impressive on his first start, vs Norwich), Bobby Clark and the prodigious 16-year-old, Trey Nyoni, who oozes quality.

Tyler Morton, with a great passing range and a fiery will to win the ball (and now playing for the England Under 21 team), will be back from loan next season, as another exciting option, as he matures physically and mentally.

That’s without even counting Trent Alexander-Arnold as a midfielder!

I mean, that’s multiples of more than every type of midfielder, to play, in combinations, about 37,489 different ways.

For me, as I will keep saying, the worst thing would be to try and mirror Klopp’s playing style with an inferior manager.

No – take this squad and impose your own ideas, within this brilliant, versatile framework.

You also don’t want a percentages, low-possession, counter-attacker as I’ve noted; no Thomas Frank, no Erik ten Hag-type.

Boss the ball (however you do it), win it back. Play smart, modern football.

There are different ways to play and different ways to win, but domination with the ball and winning the ball back as quickly as possible (high up, or in midfield) are the two main things; not the distance that passes travel.

Even this Liverpool side plays differently to the side of less than a year ago, which played very differently to the side of 2019/20 (three narrow attackers and two attacking full-backs making a front five, and a low-scoring midfield that stayed behind the ball). Prior to that, it was less possession, more gegenpressing.

Yet they all have something Kloppian about them, with tactics evolving with Pep Lijnders.

Plus, what Mo Salah offers as a player may not be relevant if the Saudis bid £150m in the summer, and he or the club feels it’s time to cash in. There will be 2-3 new players arriving in the summer, presumably, as is the norm.

But also, what Mo Salah does if he stays is reliant on him then being 32, and not as fast as he was, which is why the Reds’ tactics have changed – to generally have Szoboszlai sprinting past, as Salah play-makes from deeper on the touchline, then arrives in the box a bit later, following up play to finish, rather than constantly chasing through-balls (which Núñez now does).

To think that a manager would need to do everything the same at Liverpool as with his previous club is to ignore that if you were given peak Lionel Messi but your teams never dribbled much, that would change. Equally, as Messi changed, you’d change.

Managers have to have some pragmatism, to fit in with what they have.

Guillem Balagué correctly noted on the BBC, albeit when stating Alonso to Liverpool is not a done deal:

“As a player, as well as learning from Guardiola, Alonso soaked up from the very best including Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti and Rafael Benítez, and knows how to put his ideas across to players. He is very much an interventionist, a hands-on coach rather than a manager.

“His style as a coach leads him to look to dominate through possession, though he isn't an evangelical fundamentalist to the idea in the same way that he isn't joined at the hip to always playing 4-3-3, the favoured line-up of those who see it as the crux of the game.

“At Leverkusen he swiftly realised it was poor defending that was hurting them most, and his decision to turn to a back three with two players playing just in front of them helped shore things up.

“It is a system Alonso still uses and now he has a much stronger midfield, capable of playing through into the opposition box.

“His constant corrections in training mean just about every player has improved both individually and as part of the collective - everyone knows his methodology and what is expected of them.

“In his relationship with the players he has shades of Ancelotti - friendly, courteous and cordial, though not to the extent where anyone would wonder who was in charge, while much of his defensive strategies have probably been learned from his time with Mourinho.

“All the players - including stars like Granit Xhaka and Alex Grimaldo - speak very highly of him. These are players that are impressed not just by his CV but by the fact that he has made them better, both individually and also as a part of the team, because they can all see that they are working to a structure, and one that works.”

Which explains why Alonso plays the way he does, but he’s not wedded to short passes, or a specific formation.

It’s just what his team does right now.

And Alonso can teach this team to pass shorter if he really, really wants, as they can all pass the ball short. It’s easier for talented players than playing it long, after all. You just need to focus more on it in training.

But he would want to mix it up, surely.

He knows – deep in his core – the power of the long pass as a player, and he may just not have the players to do that having inherited someone else’s team last season and not made sweeping changes.

As Leverkusen are far less talented, Alonso is surely cutting his cloth accordingly.

If you’re telling me that Salah, Alexander-Arnold, van Dijk, Thiago, Mac Allister, Gravenberch, Szoboszlai, Luis Díaz, Cody Gakpo, Endo, Jota, Elliott, Jones, Bajcetic, Bradley, Gomez and even assured but powerful defenders in Ibrahima Konaté and Jarell Quansah, cannot play and feed-off shorter passes, then it makes no sense. Of course they can.

They do it many times each game, but not as the only way of passing.

(Even Darwin Núñez can adapt, in his own way. I’m also not sure it’s Andy Robertson’s best game, and he’s 30 now, and less vital with Gomez’s development as an all-rounder, but his spirit is infectious. If he stays, Joël Matip can do it too.)

I bow to Muller’s excellent tactical knowledge and wisdom beyond Liverpool FC, but I know this squad inside out, including watching the younger players for years and correctly calling most of their potential.

I’ve seen just how superbly talented 25 or more players are, of all ages, and how they all take up different positions and offer a wide array of abilities.

I won’t list every position played by these players, including on loans, but the squad has been built so that everyone can attack and everyone can defend.

If you can play long passes you can play medium passes, and you can play short passes. It depends what you’re asked, and then you work on it in training.

It’s not like Liverpool play “long ball football”, built around two giant strikers, as they don’t; they play Alonsoesque passes into spaces, and to switch play. But also have periods of keep-ball rondos, snapping it about.

So Liverpool don’t have giant target-men, hoof it, have 40% possession and play the percentages, a la Dyche, Hodgson, or any underdog or anti-football managers out there.

But again, can you dominate with the ball?

Yes.

Can you win the ball back?

Yes.

That’s it.

Those are the tactics you need. Within that, you can alter the fine details.

Even if it’s not Alonso who gets the job, those are the broad tactics you need (don’t cede too much possession, don’t defend too deep, don’t play anti-football).

Then you can shift from 3-4-3 to 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 or whatever, as you have a squad full of multi-faceted players that the club has specifically gone for over the years, and who themselves have played umpteen different ways under Klopp.

Look at Joe Gomez.

A fast, strong centre-back; then a reserve right-back, who developed a surprisingly good cross; and now an inverted left-back who carries the ball into midfield with comfort and ease, and passes with aplomb (shooting, less so), to the point where he could play as a no.6.

What Joe Gomez do you want?

Okay, you’ve got him.

Alexander-Arnold. An overlapping right-back crossing-machine, an inverted half-back, a no.6 – which do you want? At times this season, a no.8. This isn’t Paul Fucking Konchesky we’re talking about.

If Alexander-Arnold has proven anything it’s that he’s a proper footballer, and proper footballers can do various jobs in various roles, just as seen at Man City with Kevin de Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, and others, who shift and evolve (with Erling Haaland one of the only one-dimensional players in terms of positional play).

Liverpool don’t have a squad of one-trick ponies. All of the five strikers can play in at least two if not all three of the front three positions, while Gakpo also plays as no.8, and Díaz could too.

Want to play three at the back? You can do it with this squad, especially as Gomez continues to develop all aspects of his game and Quansah is as good as I said he would be, just a year earlier than even I expected.

Wingbacks? Conor Bradley, as I said last season and again last summer, is gonna be a superstar. Owen Beck really developed on loan this season on the left. Neither of these have even fully filled out yet.

(England youth star Luke Chambers, 19, is out on loan again, and has played centre-back, left-back, left-midfield and centre-midfield already, in two loans and with Liverpool’s first team. Again, he’s going to be a special player when he fills out, as he has a bit of everything.)

So there’s every type of player, with all manner of experiences and deployments, who have spent years being versatile. So there’s a full buffet to choose from. Not everyone will fit, but not everyone would have stayed at Liverpool even if Klopp did. Things evolve. Some good players will leave, this year and next year.

Which brings me back to the main thing: character, and a projection of authority.

Handling the Liverpool job is more important than anything. Klopp had it, and I knew it. Benítez had it, and I knew it.

Hodgson didn’t, and I knew it. Kenny Dalglish was a great short-term appointment, to give us all good vibes, but maybe not a long-term solution, and that was fine.

Brendan Rodgers was a mixed bag, at times overawed, but briefly he got things going. But he tried too hard, and seemed overawed, which led to a horrible last 15 months.

If you can’t handle the job, your tactics will wither on the vine. Your words will die on the dressing room walls. The fans will leave before full-time. The players will lose interest.

(See my recent piece on why David Moyes was so bad at Man United following Ferguson, and Unai Emery lacked the stature to replace Wenger.)

Again, I love data and analytics (I’m addicted to finding clues and patterns), and have had conversations with many of those key people behind the scenes at Liverpool over the years (less so recently).

But what Klopp did is take the great data and make it human. I wrote as much in my 2019 and 2020 books.

He gave the vibes: belief, confidence, invincibility. The data didn’t do that specific unquantifiable aspect.

Klopp never had that scared look in his eye, in contrast to Moyes at Man United, Emery at Arsenal, Graham Potter at Chelsea; the look of someone beaten within their first season. The look of someone who has taken on a job far too big for them.

He never had the total confused, ‘where-am-I?’ face-rubbing farce of Roy Hodgson at Anfield, alienating the fans and the beat writers, and saying in preseason that he hopes Liverpool don’t get thrashed by a Saudi team, and then before playing the pre-successful Man City in 2010, that he hopes Liverpool don’t lose 6-0. Hodgson could have been a tactical genius, but it didn’t matter after that point (and no, he wasn’t).

You can’t employ your tactics if you are not confident enough; if you start second-guessing yourself; if you’ve got brain freeze as you’re terrified. You need to know how big the Liverpool job is, and if you can handle it. (Again, virtually every player who joins Liverpool mentions that they knew the club was big, but not this big.)

Alonso has the aura, the cojones. He had it as a player, and he has it as a manager.

As I noted previously, he spent about 15 years at the biggest clubs in the world competing for the biggest trophies in the world (each and every season); and for Spain, playing and winning every major honour, for years on end.

Even the seasons his teams didn’t win the title, they were in the hunt; pressure, expectation, week after week.

Roy Hodgson had almost 800 years in management (give or take a year) before the Liverpool job, and he had NO IDEA about any of that.

No idea at all.

He was oblivious to the pressures and nuances of a big club, bar a difficult time at a fallow-years Inter Milan, where he was pelted off by fans at the end; but where he clearly didn’t ‘get it’ either.

In 2019, Jose Mourinho noted Alonso’s years playing under Benítez, Mourinho himself, Ancelotti and Guardiola, when singling him out as the one player he coached who would himself become a great coach, without even mentioning the Spanish national team managers he played under when winning the biggest world trophies; while noting that his father, Periko Alonso, was a player and manager.

That’s a lifetime’s education that few players or managers can replicate. Some players don’t learn from those situations as they’re insular, and thinking only of their own game; which is why Gerrard only belatedly got Benítez’s perspective.

Most players think only as players, about their own role, which is why they’re not ready to go straight into management; Alonso, like Guardiola, always thought like a coach, as did Klopp, and as did managers and coaches who gave up playing in their 20s and began to think differently.

On Alonso: in the history of the game, have any other players played for sufficient periods of time under so many of the best managers and big clubs and World Cup winning nations over a 20-year period, whilst also being the son of a coach who, as a player, won two league titles with Real Sociedad and one with Barcelona?

That’s a lifetime of football thinking, football ideas, for one of football’s thinkers.

(This isn’t some successful head-in-the-clouds sprinter-player, but a successful game-dictator, from the heart of the park, where you need to understand defence, control and attack.)

That experience is transferable: learning from the best, taking ideas, but handling pressure.

Understanding Big Club requirements in a way that so many managers cannot do; but which Guardiola knew from his time as a Barcelona player.

Big-name players do not automatically make great managers, as we all know. But if you spent your life at Big Clubs, as the son of a coach, you know football; you get an education that no Uefa license can provide (albeit they don’t hurt, either, and he got one of those as well).

I also love that Alonso spent three full years with Sociedad B, to learn the ropes and take his time; doing a full three-year degree, as it were, rather than dropping out early, to take on a bigger job before he was ready.

And you learn that there is no 100% correct way to play, and that no two teams are ever the same; and no player is the same when playing in two different teams.

(In fairness, Muller concludes with, “All of this could work and it’s certainly done wonders for Leverkusen, but a manager’s first job is to fit the team’s tactics to the strengths of the squad, which is partly why it’s very hard to predict whether coaching success will carry over to the next job. Alonso doesn’t have a long enough managerial record to suggest how he might handle the transition.” But I obviously disagree over how I think any progressive manager could tactically fit this Liverpool squad, and that tactics is not the only concern.)

If Using Data

If using data, the context of how their managerial data accrued is vital.

Indeed, all data analysis should focus on context as well as numbers. I’m sure I don’t need to tell Liverpool’s gurus that.

Budget? Interference from above? Ability to deal with owners and directors? Squad inherited? Young players blooded? Improvement on what went before? Ability to handle the media? Fan connection? Player satisfaction? Collegiate or divisive?

Is it better than expected on the budget, but also, expansive enough to scale up? What are the underlying numbers?

Was whatever they achieved done with seven day rests between games? Or battling in Europe, and constant three-day turnarounds like pretty much all of Alonso’s time in Germany, with a smaller squad?

(And which is a given at Liverpool, and something Brendan Rodgers had no experience of, and his Liverpool were terrible in Europe and terrible in the league after European games, with his one outstanding season a league-only campaign, with full time to recover and prepare. Once Europe returned, the team was terrible again.)

Bayer Leverkusen are ‘only’ 3rd on expected points in Germany, but again, doing that in a top league on a lower budget, when also managing in Europe and on a domestic cup run. (Again, 14 of 18 won in the league with the other four drawn; six out of six in the Europa League; three out of three in the domestic cup. To win 24 of 28 games, and not lose the other four, in a season is not flukey, even if the outcome of some games always ride on luck.)

It’s not just data, but matching the contexts.

And it’s not just tactics but understanding different players can do different things, if asked, within an envelope of performance possibilities (Mo Salah will never run at 37kmh again).

Remember, in 1996, Arsène Wenger inherited the totally wrong defence – the much-maligned English back four who were agricultural – but made those defenders better players.

The ‘donkey’ Tony Adams wasn’t limited to what Tony Adams had previously done, even if you wouldn’t have bet money on him becoming an imperious libero in the way that he did.

Belief and Vibes

In cricket, the charismatic, pressure-handling captain Ben Stokes has turned England around with the annoyingly named ‘Bazball’ often by getting hitherto failing players to play in a totally different way to how they played before.

(In cricket compared to football, the captain is more like the manager, the manager more like the Director of Football.)

After just one win in 17 Tests before Stokes took charge (along with Brendon ‘Baz’ McCullum), they introduced a whole new approach, labelled Bazball and mocked by teams and fans around the world. The approach is unorthodox, and they do use data, but also positive vibes, and backing their decisions in the face of criticism, such as sticking with a struggling player to boost their confidence. They use the eye-test too.

Google told me the other day that: “So far, Stokes has captained England in 20 Tests (including the ongoing Test against India), winning 13 games, losing five, and drawing one. His win percentage of 68.42% (among those who have captained the side in at least 10 Tests) is the best in England's 147-year history in Test cricket.”

Except they won that one, too. And not only won it, but with the biggest in-game deficit ever overturned in Test cricket in India – the 1.2bn populated cricket-obsessed and richest cricketing nation by far – after the previous record first innings deficit overcome was 65; England were 190 behind, or three times as much. As they’ve done a handful of times now, they’ve set records for overcoming the odds.

A youngish Scouse lad (Evertonian, alas), Tom Hartley, with not much of a career behind him – no great success – and beset with nerves bowled shockingly badly on his opening day; chosen for being very tall and having a high release point for a spin bowler, the whole concept was mocked as ludicrous, when various other players had far better data, and far more data. Hartley had played about 20 senior games before his England debut.

Rather than take Hartley off as he got pummelled for six after six, Stokes kept him bowling. He later said that he knew he’d need him in the rest of the series and the rest of that game. He didn’t want to destroy his confidence, but show faith in him.

In the second innings, Hartley produced some of the best bowling figures ever seen on debut, and was one wicket away from the holy grail in bowling: a 10-wicket match haul, which Shane Warne, the greatest-ever spin bowler, achieved just 10 times in 145 Tests. Graeme Swann, possibly England’s best-ever spin bowler, did it just three times in 60 Tests, and Hartley has already surpassed Swann’s best-ever figures in a single innings. And this was in India, where India have lost twice in 10 years.

Stokes gets mocked for the ‘vibes’ (the squad plays a lot of golf), but Bazball is about not worrying about the pressure and trying to free yourself of the fear of failure; the exact opposite of what managers like Jose Mourinho were doing, where they scared players into safety-first, which has no dated badly. Stokes is also heavily into fitness and hard work and putting in insane efforts to win, not just arsing about playing golf; but understands people, just as Klopp does.

A good modern leader will be angry at slackers, but encouraging of failure when trying. No one gets thrown under the bus, unless they are out partying instead of training.

Football teams of all levels pass out from the back now, and don’t just resort to hoofing, even when it’s going wrong. Why? To get better at it, and to be consistent in their approach. To stick to their guns, and to not always be caught in two minds – should I pass it, or hoof if? No, you always pass it, and mistakes will happen (and the manager takes the blame). But we’ll lose the ball anyway if we just hoof it. It seems mad when teams do it at Anfield, but it’s about building a culture, an identity. It’s the new mindset of elite team sport.

With the England cricket team, they kept picking Zak Crawley as the opening batter, and he kept failing, to the point where people said it was now cruel to keep picking him. Then Crawley tore into Australia in last summer’s Ashes (the biggest Test series in cricket), and top-scored for England with 480 runs in the series, just 16 behind the top Aussie. Stokes had said to criticise him, not Crawley, when Crawley was failing.

Crawley’s data was shit (domestically as well as with England), but Stokes trusted what he knew about the player, and what he wanted the player to do; he’d seen his ceiling, what he could achieve if it clicked. Crawley was a case of good eye-test, bad data. You need to work with both.

Stokes is interesting, as he’s like a cricketing Xabi Alonso in some ways: assured, talented, and with deep and varied experience of the sport, and a deep understanding of the game. He is a cricketing all-rounder, who bats, bowls and fields like a demon, so a bit like a midfielder, who has to see the whole game.

Everyone listens to Stokes, just as everyone listens to Klopp.

And everyone listens to Alonso at Leverkusen, and you’d find it hard for any single Liverpool player to turn their nose up at a manager who won even more than any of they have, the won-a-lot Thiago included.

(Indeed, Thiago would be a good person to speak to about Alonso. I also think Thiago would make a good coach, but it’s maybe too soon.)

Imagination

We need imagination, too.

To imagine how someone could adapt, without inventing fantasies.

(To me, it’s a fantasy to think that Thomas Frank could start playing possession football. He might, but it’s a fantasy, an over-projection. Like thinking Darwin Núñez would make for a good goalkeeper.)

If Alonso had done nothing in the past 18 months, after the three-year grounding in Spain, then it would be pure fantasy; utter sentimentality.

I mean, we all thought he was a future manager, right? But people said that about other players, and they flunked. At that point, we’d be projecting, fantasising.

But Alonso turned Leverkusen around last season in really radical, dramatic fashion, and turned them into the best team in Germany this season, if you add the context of all competitions.

(Bayern will surely win the league, as they always do with their mega-squad of megastars and a proven manager, but Leverkusen have had a remarkable rise over 18 months. As I said the other day, that’s beyond a bounce or a good streak of form.)

Alonso did so and despite losing a star to Aston Villa, built upon the improvement after the summer disruption where all continuity is lost, and where you start again in preseason, with no points on the board and no match fitness, with some players lost and new ones to integrate.

Again, I’m not team “Alonso and Only Alonso”, but I haven’t seen anyone else who gets close to ticking all the boxes I would suggest need ticking. (They may be out there, but not obviously so; and if not obvious to me, then many fans won’t have heard of them, and may be less enthused.)

I think Alonso’s data, tactics and his ideas are a good fit, given when I’ve seen of this Liverpool squad and how many different things it can do.

But too many other candidates amid the speculation don’t tick enough boxes. Some seem plain wrong. With a lot of them, we don’t know if they’d settle on Merseyside, let alone get Liverpool and Liverpool FC.

(That said, De Zerbi interests me, as I’ve said before, and he has the one advantage of knowing the Premier League inside out at this point in time. He has the character, the aura, I feel. His football is progressive – similar to Alonso’s – and would scale-up, without doubt. But he doesn’t have the club connection that brings extra security, and he hasn’t won anything; but nor has Alonso, yet – albeit Alonso is in a position to do so on various fronts this season, even if still against the odds. The main thing is to have a positive, winning approach, however, with the ability to handle the pressure, and De Zerbi gives that vibe.)

There may be some unknowns who have the talent, but as I keep saying, can they handle the pressure and connect with the fans?

EDIT: This (from 2017) was posted under the article by a subscriber, and is worth adding to the piece, in case people wonder how Xabi feels about a potential return:

“Liverpool is still a big part of my life and always will be,” Alonso told the ECHO.

“I still feel very attached to the club, even not being there, and I still follow the club.

“I stay in contact with friends I have in Liverpool. It’s not a normal club, it’s so special and very important to me.”

A visit to Liverpool next season with his son Jontxu, who was born in the city in 2008, has already been pencilled in.

“That’s 100 per cent sure,” he said.

“We are really looking forward to going back. I have heard great things about the new Main Stand.

“My son is desperate to go. He’s Liverpool born and always asks: ‘Dad. when are we going to Liverpool?’

https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/media-watch/257888-xabi-alonso-my-close-bond-with-liverpool-will-never-be-forgotten

Xabi Alonso (in 2017) on which club he preferred out of Bayern, Madrid and Liverpool: “I would say Liverpool. It was strange because I thought I'd feel at home in Madrid due to it being my country but compared to Liverpool it wasn't. Liverpool is like my 2nd home.”

To end, here’s what Andy Brassell noted in the Guardian:

“And whereas in many aspects of his temperament Alonso may differ from Klopp, the one thing that definitely binds them is their desire to do things by feel. Klopp’s intuition and quick, instinctive connection with Liverpool saw him through that tricky opening foundational phase at the club.

“Even if it’s difficult to imagine Alonso pumping his fist multiple times in front of the Kop, he is guided by his instinct as much as by his intelligence. It’s not just that he has done his time at Anfield. It’s that, like Klopp, he just gets Liverpool.

A move for Alonso makes sense for Liverpool in many ways. He may soon have to decide if it makes sense for him.”