Are Liverpool about to sack Arne Slot? No, they are not.
But, far more importantly, are Liverpool currently cack enough that at the start of a long – and, from England’s perspective, meaningless – international break we can pretend that they might? Yes, they absolutely are.
A p*ss-poor 3-0 defeat at Manchester City leaves their title defence in ruins and even currently below idiot clubs like Spurs and Man United in the Premier League table. And you really don’t want to look at the form table.
That’s more than enough at a time like this to at least have a look at who the top 10 in the current betting to replace him might be, according to sportscasting.com. Try to resist skipping ahead if you can, but there are some wonderful names near the top of this list.
9=) Xabi Alonso
Have to feel that, for now, this is a boat Liverpool have missed. There was a time, when we knew Jurgen Klopp was leaving and Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen were performing a season-long madness, that it felt like it was meant to be.
It still probably is, somewhere down the line. Real Madrid managers tend not to stick around for long no matter how successful they might be and the feelings between Alonso and Liverpool are clearly entirely mutual.
But if we are going to pretend the next Liverpool manager is something happening quite soon, then nah, it’s not going to be Xabi unfortunately.
9=) Edin Terzic
We’ve said the exact same thing elsewhere and we’ll say it again.
There are certain managers who from very early on just seem to have a dash of Barclays about them. We’ve always felt that way about Terzic, but the more time passes since his departure from Borussia Dortmund – a club that itself has a greater connection than most to the Barclays pipeline both in and out – the harder it gets to see someone from Our League taking a punt.
Feels like he needs an eye-catching spell somewhere else first now.
8) Julian Nagelsmann
And never mind Terzic, here’s the ultimate ‘future Premier League manager’. Absolutely nailed on to bring his unique brand of outlandishly dressed nerdishness to the Barclays at some point and thoroughly confuse and befuddle the press pack until they hound him out of Our League just to save their brains from exploding.
Absolutely possible all that happens at Liverpool, absolutely no chance of it doing so this season. After Nagelsmann has taken Germany to the World Cup next summer? Then we’ll talk.
7) Unai Emery
Yeah, fair enough this one. If Liverpool did for some reason decide that urgent action is required right now, then Emery is still really the most plausible current member of the Premier League manager class to step up. Has the big-club experience your Glasners and Iraolas lack, as well as European pedigree and the step up from Villa to Liverpool represents a smaller and thus less riskier one.
Funny old game, though, given how a couple of months he was heading towards Sackville himself after a now-turned-around ropey start to the season.
6) Pep Lijnders
Certainly be interesting to see how Jurgen Klopp’s former assistant, now working alongside his old rival Pep Guardiola at City, would get on if handed a big job of his own. Has certainly learned from the best, but by crikey it’s a gamble.
5) Xavi
He will continue to take prominent places in the lists for Premier League jobs unless and until he takes one either here or elsewhere. We’d certainly like to see how it would go.
4) Steven Gerrard
Imagine, even for a single second, being Actual Liverpool and looking at Aston Villa under Steven Gerrard and Aston Villa now and still deciding that Gerrard’s undoubted greatness as a player somehow trumped all of it.
We are messy bitches who live for drama, so obviously we desperately want this to happen but sadly the available odds would appear to misrepresent the actual in-real-life chances of such ridiculousness by several orders of magnitude.
3) Oliver Glasner
Currently doing sterling work with Crystal Palace and it does feel like it’s probably a matter of time before someone with deeper pockets and grander ambitions wants to see what he’s made of.
2) Andoni Iraola
Currently doing sterling work with Bournemouth and it does feel like it’s probably a matter of time before someone with deeper pockets and grander ambitions wants to see what he’s made of.
1) Jurgen Klopp
There are still several people desperately – and in most cases we suspect deliberately – misunderstanding that answer he gave on a podcast about the prospect of returning to Liverpool. What he meant when saying it was technically possible that he returns to Liverpool is that it’s unlike the absolute impossibility of him returning to England to manage anywhere else there is a universe and a timeline where a slim chance exists that he is back in the Liverpool dugout.
He did not mean he is ready, willing and able to kick that bald fraud out of his dugout this month.
Still, though. Imagine if it did happen. Which, and we cannot stress this enough, it won’t.