🚨 Warning! This Man Should Never Manage Liverpool! 🚨

Avoid at all costs!

This past weekend was all about Jürgen Klopp.

But the “who replaces Jürgen Klopp” narratives are spinning ever faster, as time ticks away on his increasingly tremendous tenure.

I also couldn’t help thinking, particularly during the Allez Allez Allez at 0-0 in extra-time, as the Reds’ raw kids ran Chelsea ragged, what any prospective manager would be thinking.

Not just taking over the management of the kids and the glorious senior squad; but the fans. We can overhype Anfield at times (it can be deathly quiet at times, but often in contemplation), and yet it’s also still the best stadium in England when it’s rocking; even Luton found that out recently.

It struck me on Sunday, as a bunch of kids – not just teens, but in some cases U18 players who’d barely trained with the first team (which is why Harvey Elliott, 20 but with 100 games, wasn’t included in the list of ‘kids’) – were lifted by the travelling Kop. They sang their hearts out – whilst Chelsea fans fumbled with their plastic flags.

A lot has been made about the Reds’ playing style under Klopp, but to me, it fits within the mould of any of the modern managers linked (Xabi Alonso, Roberto De Zerbi and Rúben Amorim); but not at all like Thomas Frank’s clever but limited anti-possession side, which suits mid-table and below.

But this isn’t about Frank; it’s about using data to show another manager, very much being touted, who must not get the job.

Team One vs Team Two

To show how different teams can be and how unsuitable a manager can be for one club based on his performance at another, here’s an example using the Athletic’s metrics from a recent article.

Team One, whose manager must never manage Liverpool, is almost as low as it gets for Patient Attack, whereas Team Two is almost as high as it gets.

These are almost polar opposites.

Team One looks very poor, and not at all what’s required.

Team One is miles behind Team Two on Intensity (11 vs 45).

Likewise, Team Two is miles ahead on Press Resistance (30 vs 74); and significantly ahead on possession (68 vs 93), Field Tilt (61 vs 95), High Line (41 vs 59), Chance Prevention (69 vs 89) and Chance Creation (70 vs 95).

Clearly, the manager of Team One would not suit managing Team Two. The numbers are of a mediocre side, at best.

The manager of Team One also must never manage Liverpool, based on his data.

The manager of Team Two, however, looks the part.

He’d be my choice.

Who Are They?

Team Two is Bayer Leverkusen, under Xabi Alonso.

Team One is ...

… also Bayer Leverkusen under Xabi Alonso.

The time difference is 2022/23 (One) vs 2023/24 (Two).

Which is why I worry about people putting too much weight on ‘fancy’ (if insightful) style metrics, to rule someone out, when these are often fine detail differences, and can often be changed in a relatively short space of time, if the manager has the quality, and the players are versatile and adaptable.

Indeed, the Athletic’s own analysis proves as much.

(Last week I analysed a BBC article that was using data in a really bad way.)

Alonso has shown that with Leverkusen, in quickly changing from one style to another; De Zerbi has at Brighton.

That said, it’s often been going up 10% in possession, from 55% or so, to +60%, as Liverpool did over half a decade ago following the evolution of the team; I just don’t see how a Frank at Brentford has shown (even if he is capable) how he can manage beyond the sub-50% style of Brentford, which is more like Erik Ten Hag’s struggling Man United.

If Liverpool are currently a German Shepherd under Klopp – aggressive, hard-working, strong, intelligent, never resting, huge teeth; then Alonso is perhaps a Border Collie – tenacious, hard-working, agile, super-intelligent, never resting.

A German Collie or a Border Shepherd would be a perfect mongrel, mixing the best of both worlds, with breeding obviously possible between dogs, and thus an ideal metaphor.

What Liverpool don’t want is something else with four legs, that has the same number of eyes, and ticks other data boxes that suggest similarity – a tortoise, or a giraffe, or maybe even a dinosaur; differences of kind (i.e Sean Dyche.)

Equally, if sticking with canis familiaris, Liverpool don’t want a Pekingese poodle, or a lumbering but loveable St Bernard.

Taking a scatterplot that Mizgan Masani had created for the ‘TTT Transfer Hub & Deep Dives’ (possession vs number of passes per sequence), and carrying on the canine theme, I grouped the teams across Europe into three types.

I genuinely think that, in terms of playing style, that’s almost all that’s required. Almost all the modern football styles are on the right, and would include Brighton too (Man United would be middling, not that different to Wolves, from which they all descend.)

Doggy Style

I would think that any manager could move within the same grouping and offer the same kind of results, within reason. (The same style with better finishers and better goalkeepers/defenders would offer better results, clearly.)

Perhaps all managers could eke their way from left to right to a small degree, but it’s probably rare to go from one breed to another, and certainly from the left of the plot straight to the right.

Yet last season, Leverkusen were also middling. They were spaniels, adapting to the new manager.

Now they’re elite.

(And it wasn’t all down to buying Granit ‘Mad Dog’ Xhaka.)

Alonso, in the space of one summer, totally reinvented Leverkusen. He changed their style then (moving to a back three to help stop the flow of goals conceded before he arrived), and he changed it again this summer.

So let’s not obsess about fine details and look at general approach, mindset, ideology, and results.

• Can you control and pass the ball quickly?

• Do you have high skill levels?

• Pace, stamina, intelligence?

• The ability to create and score tons of goals?

• Are you strong of mind and body?

• Do you have most or all of these qualities?

That’s Liverpool, and that’s Leverkusen.

As a team, do you play in a style that has +60% possession, creates +1 xG per game more than you concede, and have 1,300 touches per season in the opposition box? This, to me, is almost the DNA sequence of what kind of breed you are.

Who knew that, at a macro Liverpool, Liverpool and Leverkusen are almost identical?

But let’s compare the two with a more expensive team/squad, with a manager who won a lot of games in his previous job.

Just to show how, with longer in the job than Alonso, and a lot more money (and a lot more expensive players inherited), Erik ten Hag has done absolutely nothing to evolve Man United’s style of play.

And on the main metrics I’m interested in, Man United are almost playing a different sport to Liverpool, whereas Leverkusen are almost identical.

Man United are timid Bichon Frisés, scared of their own shadows.

Now, Roberto De Zerbi’s teams have even more possession than Liverpool and Leverkusen, which is remarkable, and have 10% more touches in the opposition box 10% than Man United. As noted before, they just have Danny Welbeck on the end of them.

Obviously United have various £80m attacking players (at least three, one now out on loan), and Marcus Rashford, as well as the speedy and skilful Alejandro Garnacho. (And in 2024 money, Anthony Martial, another, cost about £150m.)

In addition, Bruno Fernandes and Christian Eriksen, plus the lesser-spotted Mason Mount.

Even so, by all metrics and the eye-test, De Zerbi’s team play better football; they just don’t have the same firepower up front, and a bargain goalkeeper behind some journeymen centre-backs. They lost their entire midfield in the summer, for almost £200m.

I’d imagine that Rúben Amorim’s team at Sporting have similarly positive underlying numbers; the possession is up close to the 60% mark from what I’ve seen (the Portuguese data isn’t as freely available), and what little I could find shows:

• Record: 18-1-2, 55 points (2.62 per game), 2nd in Primeira Liga (1st Tier)

• Home Record: 11-0-0, 33 points. Away Record: 7-1-2, 22 points

• Goals: 60 (2.86 per game), Goals Against: 19 (0.90 per game), Diff: 41

• xG: 46.3, xGA: 15.6, Diff: 30.7 (+1.46 per game).

All of which is elite, but as one of three big teams in pretty much a four-team league (Braga being the other).

From Wikipedia:

“With the exception of Belenenses in 1945–46 and Boavista in 2000–01, only three clubs have won the Primeira Liga title – Benfica (38 times), Porto (30) and Sporting CP (19). These three clubs generally end up sharing the top three positions (thus, appearing more frequently in UEFA competitions) and are the only clubs to have played in every season of the competition.”

(Weirdly, as a big digression, I was at Anfield when Boavista visited in the Champions League following their lone title success, and their goalscorer in a 1-1 draw shot imaginary pistols into the Kop. The date was September 11th, 2001, with the World Trade Centre towers collapsing earlier that day, as we watched in disbelief at a house in Chester when stopping off en route to the match.)

Which is not to say that Amorim isn’t doing a great job, and he clearly has a positive approach. But as with his experience as a player and a manager in general, it’s totally “Portuguese”. It’s good that he knows the pressure of a big club in a smaller pond, but also, hasn’t really done anything else.

I think what Alonso is doing is more remarkable, more applicable to the Premier League and more suitable for Liverpool, but stylistically, Amorim ticks a lot of boxes, as does De Zerbi.

Plus, almost no one else plays like Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, but again, even last season, Klopp’s Liverpool did not play like Liverpool 2.0; at least until the spring of 2023.

But what is consistent since 2018 is 60% possession, around +1xG Difference per game, and over 1,100 opposition penalty box touches (1,300+ for the very best teams).

Which shows that all the different ways Liverpool have played in the past six years, the DNA is the same.

Then, there’s who would suit Alonso’s style.

Players Who Can Play The Alonso Way

• Virgil van Dijk

• Joël Matip

• Mohamed Salah

• Alisson

• Wataru Endo

• Kostas Tsimikas

• Diogo Jota

• Luis Díaz

• Joe Gomez

• Trent Alexander-Arnold

• Caoimhín Kelleher

• Thiago Alcántara

• Alexis Mac Allister

• Cody Gakpo

• Ibrahima Konaté

• Dominik Szoboszlai

• Curtis Jones

• Jarell Quansah

• Ryan Gravenberch

• Harvey Elliott

• Conor Bradley

• Stefan Bajcetic

• Fabio Carvalho

• Owen Beck

• Tyler Morton

• Sepp van den Berg

• Calvin Ramsay

• Luke Chambers

• James McConnell

• Kaide Gordon

• Bobby Clark

• Ben Doak

• Trey Nyoni

• Jayden Danns

• Lewis Koumas

• Trent Kone-Doherty

Players Who Possibly Can’t Play The Alonso Way

• Darwin Núñez

Except …

… as I showed the other week, his data is virtually identical to Leverkusen’s first-choice striker, even if there will never be another Darwin Núñez in the remaining history of humanity.

Which shows that, again, the teams are not necessarily as different as people think. (Even if they ‘achieve’ their near-identical data in different ways.)

Literally the only player I worry about is Andy Robertson, whose age and style maybe suggests he’s not suited, but who would still give his all, and as he showed against Luton, win the ball back for two goals, even if one of them was because he gave it away, as a limited passer. But you’d still want him in the squad, for his big heart and big character, and if he has time and space, a lovely cross.

He’s in my all-time Liverpool XI at left-back, but maybe he’s the one whose time has passed if things are to evolve.

Part Two

A Week Where Liverpool Job Just Got Better for Xabi Alonso (If He Wants It)

Bayern Wanting Alonso Opens Door For Liverpool, Bullshit Data, and Internal Promotion to Director of Football?

I kept wondering what Xabi Alonso must be thinking, watching, as he surely would be, on TV from Germany.

“My time in England was, for me, spectacular,” he said in 2017. “I was 22, it was my first experience of living on my own and of living somewhere which wasn’t my home town.”

“It was when I became an adult, and I realised in that first year at Liverpool what a special club it is, with all the history and the tradition of Liverpool. From the first day you realise how big it is.”

And in 2011, “I am still a Liverpool fan and will be forever, absolutely.”

Alyson Rudd in the Times said Alonso “has spoken of how Anfield possesses a soul that expects and delivers ‘pure football’”.

Alexis Mac Allister, who has a bit of the Alonso about him, said before the League Cup final, “It is crazy because since the first day here I really felt a connection that I have not felt at any other club.”

It struck me, as a bunch of kids – not just teens and 20-year-olds, but in some cases U18 players who’d barely trained with the first team (which is why Harvey Elliott, 20 but with 100 games, wasn’t included) – outplayed the billionaire Blues in extra-time. The travelling Kop sang its heart out – whilst Chelsea fans fumbled with their plastic flags.

Outsiders don’t always get it; but someone like Alonso does.

Klopp also recently called Alonso “the standout coach of the next generation”.

Rudd noted last week:

“Most Liverpool fans are coping right now because they hope, or possibly assume, Alonso had agreed to replace Klopp before the German’s shock announcement that this is his final campaign. And Liverpool supporters are wise enough to know that the Spaniard will not operate just as Klopp has done. Alonso is much less extroverted, but this is no big deal. The loud and proud Bill Shankly left a void that was filled beautifully by the quiet, unassuming authority of Bob Paisley.

“Difference is just fine, it’s the connection that matters.”

The Bayern Munich situation, where Thomas Tuchel will leave in the summer, and where they will now ruthlessly go after Xabi Alonso – in part to try and unsettle Bayer Leverkusen (or just as a bonus) – possibly opens the door to Liverpool, if the Reds did not resolve the situation back in the midseason break.

My hunch was that Liverpool would not want to unsettle Alonso and Leverkusen too much, albeit the winter break would have been a good time to negotiate.

But Bayern are famous for actively unsettling rivals’ players and coaches during seasons.

If you’re Leverkusen, you might have been thinking “do nothing until the summer”.

Now you must be thinking: steer Alonso to Liverpool;

a) to stop Bayern unsettling us this season, and

b) so Bayern don’t have Alonso next season.

So this could stir things into life.

The Bayern job is very insecure, the club overly political, and the squad divided. They also make you wear lederhosen. (And a man as effortlessly cool as Alonso should never be made to wear lederhosen.)

Alonso’s mentor and inspiration is at Manchester City. His lifetime friend and closest peer is at Arsenal. A third Real Sociedad alumni is at Aston Villa. That trio are in the league that matters most right now.

Raphael Honigstein had made a good case for why Alonso might choose to stay in the league that he himself covers so well as a journalist, but then on a podcast about Crystal Palace, noted that Oliver Glasner turned down a big German club to move to lowly Palace and the Premier League.

Imagine someone turning down Arsenal or Chelsea to manage Augsburg?

**The final section of this article is for paying TTT Main Hub subscribers only, as I look more at why Liverpool are surely more appealing than Bayern right now, and who my choice for the Reds’ next Director of Football would be.**