The Liverpool FC Thread XVII

Agree. A good player is not a good manager automatically, but with this performance in Bundesliga Alonso deserves a fair chance without a doubt.

Gerrard looked like he was doing well with Rangers but when he moved to Aston Villa he flopped (and now Emery doing an amazing job).
We saw Potter do well at Brighton but struggle at Chelsea.
I don't think Alonso "deserves" a fair chance. But he has probably shown enough quality, in a weak manager market, that we might be willing to take a risk on him.

I would go for a proven Prem League Manager like Tuchel (if he leaves) than fall for the hype of Alonso. He needs to prove himself in more clubs than just Leverkusen.

Tuchel is also a good solution and a decent successor for Klopp. He has shown more than once that he is a great manager for great teams. And a better option than Alonso, although I think that the latter is on a good way to become a great one.

I would go for a proven Prem League Manager like Tuchel (if he leaves) than fall for the hype of Alonso. He needs to prove himself in more clubs than just Leverkusen.

The only thing Tuchel has proven in recent years is that he knows how to fall out with players/owners.
There was the whole "following Klopp path" after he replaced Klopp at Mainz and Dortmund. Since then, their paths have diverged. Klopp unified Liverpool (owners, fans, everyone) whereas Tuchel left PSG in acrimonious circumstances. Fell out with Boehly pretty quickly at Chelsea and now failed to stay at Bayern too.
He might get some short term success but he hasn't been able to stay at any club for more than 2-3 years since his Mainz days some 15 years ago!

Tuchel was an example but my point was to have a proven manager with PL experience rather than an untested young manager like Alonso. I have no problem with Alonso but he needs more experience.

Guardiola had no experience when he became Barcelona manager and was immensely successful. Zidane too.
Hiring a "proven PL manager" is just an excuse for poor hiring analysis. A top club should be able to filter that and work out who is a potentially great manager, regardless of if he has managed in the PL or not.

Pep and Zidane managed two of the greatest clubs in history. We need to be more realistic and honest.
I understand your second paragraph but I think the PL has its own complexities. The benefit for Alonso is that he has played in England which can be a plus for him, but managing a big English club today is not as easy as it seems.

And that just means there was even more pressure on Pep/Zidane as expectation was even higher. And yet they both surpassed expectations during their tenures too.
What complexities do you think the PL has that other leagues or playing in the CL doesn't have?
There's nothing special about the PL, it's just that the clubs all have more money. The league has become stronger with the huge influx of foreign managers. You can see the impact that Pep and Klopp have had on the PL. Alonso would just be another foreign manager (but one that speaks Spanish, German and English to a high standard).

Both were at clubs that could still comfortably win games without a manager. I don't think one can compare the Liverpool of today to the Barca or Madrid of before Pep/Zidane, it is unfair comparison.
The complexities are the level of competition, the scrutiny, the wider political games etc. Granted, I am not super familiar with other european leagues like the EPL but I comfortably understand the Prem. Would Alonso be able to manage the pressure of sustained losses without sufficient backing from FSG? What happens when he does not win trophies or loses in a cold night at Newcastle after being slapped by City?
I like Alonso but, as I said about Gerrard, i think he needs more time. I remember another thread where i mentioned that Gerrard needed more time after his earlier success and i was laughed out and insulted, now no sane person would say that Gerrard should have taken the Liverpool job.

Barcelona were not in a great place when Guardiola was appointed. And then he elevated them to the top of the game - that Barca side goes down as one of the greatest ever. No doubt talented players but Guardiola was the architect of all that.
You think there is more scrutiny at PL clubs compared to Real Madrid and Barcelona..?
The only harder thing about the PL is that the bottom clubs have huge budgets (the gap between 20th and 1st in the PL is smaller than 20th and 1st in La Liga) so there are less guaranteed win games.
But the biggest/best clubs just manage that by having better squads and rotating.
Arteta had little experience when Arsenal appointed him. No doubt there has been a learning curve for him at Arsenal but he's been given time and backing and seems to be doing a good job.
Alonso further ahead now compared to when Arteta was appointed as Arsenal manager.

Barcelona were not that bad though. They had won the Champions League couple of seasons before Pep started as manager in 2008.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Barcelona
Yes, he elevated them to greater heights but they were decent before he took over.
The media scrutiny on the PL is intense imho. There could be similar scrutiny on Madrid and Barca but it does not take away from the point.
Arteta has not won any meaningful trophies other than 1 FA cup and Community Shields. Unless you want Liverpool to operate at Arsenal’s level with 1 FA cup during Alonso’s potential reign.
Anyway, i think we can agree to disagree. As a supporter, I will back any manager that is appointed but if the club does not do well, I hope the fans actively campaigning for Alonso to join don't stab him in the back when it gets tough.

They had won 2 La Liga titles in the decade before Guardiola. They had some star players but Pep also bombed them out pretty quickly when he arrived. Probably says more about the Arsenal bottle job than Barcelona winning in 05/06 CL final
There is more media scrutiny on Madrid/Barcelona! There are Madrid specific papers that constantly write about Madrid and Barcelona. Only 2 really big clubs so all the focus is on their success and failures. The Premier League has the "big 6" and there is plenty of media scrutiny spread across them.
Before Arteta, Arsenal were averaging around 7th-8th place in the league. Now they can say they did a title challenge last season and also competiting this season.
Liverpool don't have the budget of Man Utd or Man City or the dodgy accounting tricks of Chelsea so they won't be the biggest spenders so we have to be smarter. I don't expect us to be favourites at any point.
Xabi Alonso would get a lot more loyalty from Liverpool fans because of his playing career.

The only thing Tuchel has proven in recent years is that he knows how to fall out with players/owners.
There was the whole "following Klopp path" after he replaced Klopp at Mainz and Dortmund. Since then, their paths have diverged. Klopp unified Liverpool (owners, fans, everyone) whereas Tuchel left PSG in acrimonious circumstances. Fell out with Boehly pretty quickly at Chelsea and now failed to stay at Bayern too.
He might get some short term success but he hasn't been able to stay at any club for more than 2-3 years since his Mainz days some 15 years ago!

Guardiola had no experience when he became Barcelona manager and was immensely successful. Zidane too.
Hiring a "proven PL manager" is just an excuse for poor hiring analysis. A top club should be able to filter that and work out who is a potentially great manager, regardless of if he has managed in the PL or not.

He's a bit like Mourinho in that sense. Sure he can build a team and win some trophies but I don't see him as a 5+ year manager. He'd be good if your next manager doesn't start well and they get sacked though

Yeah poch is also a proven prem manager while Arteta had zero jobs before the arsenal role.
Gotta say arsenal really did a lot of research in Arteta before hiring him because that was a big gamble

It's important to remember just how tremendously difficult it is to appoint a manager in any circumstances. Compare it with buying players. Clubs have frameworks, systems and staff in place to help them make good decisions when buying players, yet even the best clubs in that respect have misses. It's like American sports teams drafting college prospects. They have endless data on players that turn out well, players that don't, and those who are not considered to be good prospects but go on to have amazing careers. Yet even now, there's a huge rate of teams drafting players highly that flop, or missing out on very good players who are drafted very low. There's still so much luck in it, and it's the same with football transfers.
Yet with both draft picks and transfers, teams do it multiple times every year. They don't appoint managers nearly as often, so for me it's a much more difficult exercise. Remember that in Klopp's first year we didn't do all that well, and in fact his record was worse than Rodgers'. Before Rodgers, Hodgson was seen as a safe pair of hands with PL experience, and his tenure was disastrous. Dalglish's appointment was greeted with optimism bearing in mind he'd literally won the PL before, but that didn't go well either. We all wanted Klopp to do well, but did anyone seriously predict him to win the PL, CL, a few years cups, and reach so many finals and be so consistently competitive? I didn't, and now we need to appoint a manager to follow that, and we need to remember that we have no entitlement to a manager who can be anywhere near as good as Klopp. Such a candidate might not exist.
So really there may not be a right answer here. Alonso, Tuchel, and a handful of others who are in the frame may all do well. Or none of them might. The processes within the club will be more rigorous and they certainly have a better chance of making the right decision than we do, but there's every chance that they get it wrong and someone in this thread would have made a more successful choice. As we've seen, some previously successful managers do not do well and subsequent clubs. It's very difficult to tell.
There are two things that I think work in our favour here. The first is that we are, now, a well run club behind the scenes. That makes a big difference. You can see how it's crippling the likes of United and Chelsea. So that makes it more likely that any given manager will be successful. The second is that we are likely to have both patience and money. Patience because we're not like a Real Madrid or Bayern who will replace a manager after losing a few games. We know success takes time and the new manager will have that. We'll probably have money because I expect Salah to go for £100m+ in the summer, so there should be funds available to shape the team. Again, both of those things help a manager to bed in.
With all of that said, I'd like to see us take a chance on Alonso. His lack of experience goes against him, but he's a very intelligent guy and has by all accounts absolutely dedicated himself to learning his managerial craft. Winning the league with Leverkusen is a massive achievement; certainly more impressive than Gerrard winning the league with Rangers and arguably more impressive than Benitez winning La Liga with Valencia back in the day. I think he's a higher risk option that someone like Tuchel, but he's also a higher reward option. If he does turn out to be as good as his potential suggests, we could have massive success with him. I am concerned that we won't get him though. Madrid and Bayern want him too, both clubs that he's played for. One with a massive global profile and one the same country that he's currently living in. As much as he had a lot of success with us, I think we may struggle to convince him. The one point in our favour is that we're not a club that comes around very often. Madrid and Bayern sack managers regularly. We do not. So if he's interested in the Liverpool job, it might be his only chance. We'll give him time to. If he goes for Bayern or Madrid and doesn't have immediate success, he'll be out the door and Liverpool won't be available.