Sven Mislintat is a major candidate to replace Julian Ward as Liverpool’s sporting director amid a strong relationship with Jurgen Klopp.
Liverpool were left rocked last week as Ward communicated his intention to leave Anfield.
Ward only took over from Michael Edwards as Liverpool’s sporting director over the summer.
Yet Ward is already intending to leave Liverpool, with his exit likely to come at the end of the season rather than after the January transfer window.
Sven Mislintat is a major candidate for Liverpool role
Whilst Liverpool promoted from within by hiring Ward to fill Edwards’ role, they may now need to go for an outside candidate.
Sky Germany’s Florian Plettenberg now reports that a contender has emerged for the job – Sven Mislintat.
Plettenberg’s claims are very notable because he was the journalist who broke Sadio Mane’s move to Bayern Munich.
This comes on the day that Stuttgart confirmed the departure of Mislintat from his role as sporting director.
Mislintat, 50, is close with Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp from their time working together at Borussia Dortmund.
No talks have been held yet but Mislintat is now available for a move to Anfield and is being considered for the post.
The German was a scout at Dortmund during Klopp’s time there, even earning the name ‘diamond eye’ before stepping up to director of football after his exit.
Mislintat took a big role with Arsenal in 2017 and signed three former Dortmund players in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Sokratis Papastathopoulos.
Mislintat was seen as a big coup for Arsenal at the time but ended up leaving in February 2019 before Edu arrived.
Stuttgart were happy to bring in Mislintat in 2019 and their recruitment has been decent.
Sasa Kalajdzic and Gregor Kobel were sold on to Wolves and Dortmund respectively whilst attacker Silas Katompa Mvumpa is likely to go in the near future.
Mislintat shopped around for bargains at Stuttgart and would be expected to recruit at a much higher standard with Liverpool.
The Reds may well hope that Mislintat’s ties to Borussia Dortmund will help in the race for Jude Bellingham – if he does end up taking the job.
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