Liverpool's dream successor to outgoing Jurgen Klopp is already staring them in the face

Losing Jürgen Klopp will hurt more than most Liverpool fans will be able to articulate right now. It wasn’t just the trophies, the infectious personality, the toothpaste-advert smile and the heavy metal football – he completely rejuvenated the club, restored pride after years of frustration and near misses, and reset the culture and identity of a team which had struggled in the shadow of its own past success. At first glance, he looks irreplaceable. Fortunately for Liverpool, that isn’t the case.

Klopp will cast his own long shadow. He made Liverpool champions of England, Europe and the world, and may well yet leave Anfield with another Premier League title under his belt. He will stand alongside Bill Shankly and Kenny Dalglish in Liverpool’s pantheon – a lesser deity when it comes to filling the trophy cabinet, perhaps, but no less important in the hearts of the Kop. It will take a special manager to step into his shoes, earn his own place in the affections of the fans and find his own way to win. But Xabi Alonso fits the bill perfectly.

He already has the love of the fans. As the cultured and classy deep-lying playmaker who kept Liverpool ticking over match after match, he was a Champions League winner and beloved by the support base. He comes pre-loved, but not too heavily used. While Klopp’s journey has burned him out, leaving him, by his own admission, without the energy to continue, 42-year-old Alonso is at the start of his managerial journey and has plenty in the tank.

And he has started his coaching career in remarkable fashion. After working as the coach of Real Sociedad’s B team following his retirement, Bayer Leverkusen decided to take a big chance on him when they found themselves struggling in the Bundesliga over the first months of the 2022/23 season. The 2002 Champions League finalists were struggling to play with substance and were flirting with relegation, so appointing a rookie manager was a colossal leap of faith. It has paid off in style.

Over the remainder of the season, Alonso completely turned Leverkusen around. They hadn’t won a single league game when he took control and had been dumped out of the DFB Pokal in the first round by then third-tier Elversberg but won 12 of their last 25 matches under and made the semi-finals of the Europa League, earning qualification for the continent’s second tournament again through their eventual league placing.

This season, he has proven that the upturn in form he inspired was very far from a fluke. He has moulded Leverkusen into a youthful, energetic, fast-paced and dynamic team. They sit top of the Bundesliga, cruised through their Europa League group stage, and are in the quarter-finals of the DFB Pokal. Along the way, they haven’t lost a single game, breaking the record for longest unbeaten start to a Bundesliga season. They have become a brilliant, destructive force in world football, and have every chance of ending Bayern Munich’s long hold on the German league.

So he’s a Merseyside favourite who would have the supporters on side from the start and has a short but astonishingly impressive track record behind him. But his style of play should fit Liverpool perfectly too.

Alonso favours a 3-4-3 formation with a rigid core of three technical centre-halves and two holding midfielders, giving his wing-backs the freedom to bomb on down the flanks while a fluid front three, consisting of two attacking midfield/inside forward hybrids who look for half-spaces between the lines and a central striker. That isn’t how Klopp lines up, but it’s no great challenge to see how it could work.

Klopp’s Liverpool already use their wing-backs in extremely aggressive fashion, either side of a more solid and compact midfield. Moving a central midfielder into defence, however, would provide more protection in behind players like Trent Alexander-Arnold, who is exceptionally dangerous going forward but leaves his side exposed on a regular basis.

Of course, dropping a man from midfield can make it harder to control possession, but Alonso seems to have picked up a few tricks from the Pep Guardiola school. His team is extremely positionally aware and, much like Guardiola’s all-conquering Barcelona teams, look to unlock defences with a lot of structured one-twos, knocking the ball forward and back quickly to bypass the opposing midfield line and give runners chances to find spaces to attack. It has been hugely effective, and one can imagine almost every player in the current Liverpool squad dropping seamlessly into the roles Alonso wants his players in at Leverkusen.

Not that Alonso is tactically dogmatic – when he first took charge of Leverkusen, he mostly played 4-4-2 to better suit the players at his disposal. The broad tactical strokes have remained much the same, but he seems able to adapt his methods to the tools he has based on his short career so far.

And it looks quite a lot like Alonso would be interested in the job. He was routinely linked with the Real Madrid position when it was believed that Carlo Ancelotti was leaving to join Brazil at the end of the season, but now that the Italian has extended his stay the other option which could easily tempt him away from Leverkusen has been removed.

Alonso was, inevitably, asked about the Liverpool job within a couple of hours of Klopp’s announcement. “Speculation is normal but for what Jürgen did in Liverpool I have great respect and admiration," he said. "My focus is here in Leverkusen and have big motivation and am very happy working with these players.

“We are in an intense but beautiful journey and I’m trying to give my best. I am not in that moment to think about the next job… What’s going to happen in the future I don’t really know.”

Which, reading between the lines somewhat, may not quite be a yes but certainly doesn’t sound too much like a no. Alonso has always maintained his link with his former club, and it’s clear that Liverpool remain dear to him. Nobody is questioning whether he is happy in Germany, but the chance to manage such a colossal club and write his name even further into the legend of Anfield may prove irresistible to him.

As for Liverpool and their owners Fenway Sports Group, they shouldn’t overthink their decision too much. Alonso is the bookies’ favourite to succeed Klopp and there are few rational arguments that could be made against his appointment. Other names will be thrown into the ring – Roberto de Zerbi, Julian Nagelsmann, maybe even Steven Gerrard – but Liverpool are lucky enough to have the right man for the job looking directly at them.