In a whirlwind few days for Liverpool the top brass have sacked Brendan Rodgers, after 40 months at the helm, and no real progress.
The BBC, among others, state with confidence that Jurgen Klopp is being lined up as the next manager. They say:
Liverpool hope to appoint Jurgen Klopp to replace sacked manager Brendan Rodgers by the end of the week.
The other name on the lips is of course Carlo Ancelotti. soccersweep.com assesses the two as potential Liverpool managers.
Ancelotti
Instinctively, we feel that Ancelotti would be a safe bet for Liverpool right now. They are a rudderless ship in danger of hitting the rocks and they need a steady hand to guide them out of troubled waters.
Ancelotti is one of the safest pairs of hands in modern football. He is a top pro who remains composed under pressure and has done a great job wherever he has been.
Many felt that he was let go by Madrid too early, just a season after winning La Decima.
But, like Louis van Gaal at Manchester United, Ancelotti would essentially be a ‘hired gun’ – someone to come in for 2-3 years and steady the ship without necessarily getting involved long-term.
Which brings us onto Jurgen Klopp
He is undoubtedly a higher risk appointment. He has no experience in England and only had moderate success in management before Dortmund (Klopp started well at Mainz, taking them into the German top division and the UEFA Cup but he couldn’t sustain their top flight status and eventually resigned).
But, he is the sort of man that COULD make Liverpool great again – he looks like a long-term investment who can build this team back up from the ground and, perhaps as importantly, get them playing beautiful football again.
Having won The Bundesliga twice with Dortmund (and reached The Champions League Final) Klopp has proven that he can take on the big boys, with a less fancied team, and win.
Klopp is higher risk but could be the perfect long-term replacement – the empire builder.
We will leave you with this.
In October 2012 Dortmund came to Manchester City, who were then almost unbeatable in the league and playing bewitching football.
That it ended 1-1 still leaves us bemused, and The BBC described it this way:
City’s 17-game unbeaten run at home in Europe looked to be over with the German side leading through a Marco Reus strike and only being denied more goals by a virtuoso performance from an inspired Joe Hart.
they (City) were gifted a last-minute chance to save themselves when Neven Subotic handled inside the area, and substitute Balotelli coolly rolled home the resulting spot-kick.
It is a point that keeps City’s hopes of reaching the knockout stages alive but it was more than they deserved from a game in which their defence was often ripped to shreds.
The Germans played City off the park with utterly beautiful, high tempo and clinical football. It was the best performance that I saw from any team in Europe that season and remains, to this day, one of the very best displays of football that I have witnessed – football precisely as it should be played.
Klopp LOVES fast-paced, eye-catching, fluent and beautiful football. If he can get Liverpool ticking with an already decent squad at his disposal, this will be a match made in heaven.
