Legendary manager Jürgen Klopp will officially leave his position at the end of the season to take a much-needed break from football, leaving Liverpool with the enormous burden of replacing him.
Despite several key injuries, Klopp’s Reds are leading the Premier League and just defeated Chelsea to win the League Cup.
Since joining Liverpool from Borussia Dortmund, where he transformed a slipping team back into a dominant one, the German manager has brought stability, perseverance, and success to the club.
Now, Xabi Alonso, the current Bayer Leverkusen manager and Liverpool’s top candidate to replace the outgoing German will be given these responsibilities, if everything goes according to Liverpool’s plans.
One of the most revered people in sports, Xabi Alonso is a former player for Liverpool and a legend on the field. He has taken Leverkusen from the threat of relegation to the pinnacle of German football.
Liverpool and Alonso have supposedly had “positive contacts,” and the Spaniard wants to join the team, according to a report from Santi Aouna of FootMercato.
Aouna reports that Bayern Munich are still in the running, but Alonso is “more excited” to be joining Liverpool.
Considering how dysfunctional Bayern are right now, Alonso’s decision is obvious. There is however, another option, and that is to replace Carlo Ancelotti at Real Madrid.
The issue with the latter option is that, despite Madrid’s allure, they do replace managers more quickly than Liverpool. More importantly, there’s no guarantee that Ancelotti will leave the Madrid job.
With a strong track record, a plethora of talented young players, and the Premier League’s excitement, they could be the perfect fit for Alonso. He is already a figure who is loved at the club for his role in making the Reds the Champions League winners in 2005.
The fans would be forgiving towards him instead of any other manager. He will be given time to assert his ideas and make changes. On paper, it looks like a match made in heaven.
