Manager inspired by Pep Guardiola might just get the Liverpool job now – Our View

Follow us on Google Discover

Steven Gerrard has been sacked, and while that has some obvious knock-on effects at Aston Villa, there will be shockwaves over at Liverpool as well.

Make no mistake about it, Gerrard was being groomed to be the next manager of Liverpool. Jurgen Klopp said himself that the job would be his one day, and it looked pretty inevitable.

However, after failing as a manager in English football, Liverpool and their board may want to rethink the Gerrard plan, and that may mean that Pep Lijnders emerges as the top candidate to replace Jurgen Klopp when the times comes.

Lijnders is, of course, the Reds’ current assistant manager, and there have been suggestions that he is a candidate to replace Klopp.

Indeed, James Pearce said as much on The Red Agenda Podcast earlier this year.

“Liverpool do like that continuity, don’t they? And I think that’s why we’ve talked before about [how] Pep Lijnders is a very serious option to take over if Klopp does go in 2024, because he gives you that continuity,” Pearce said.

With Gerrard now potentially out of the picture, this job may be Lijnders’ job to lose.

So, if the Reds do appoint the Dutchman, what type of manager will they be getting?

Of course, this is a coach heavily inspired by Jurgen Klopp having worked with him for years, but he’s also somewhat inspired by Pep Guardiola as he said on The Big Interview with Graham Hunter.

“Well what we have in common is our belief in the way of play I think. That you can achieve a lot with dedicated, specific team training, so he inspired the world with his Barca team, and he also inspired me of course,” Lijnders said.

“In terms of the dynamic of the offence of football, the ability of each individual, the technical ability of each individual and how he puts that, because it comes very close to one of the main guys I grew up with in Johan Cruyff.”

A manager inspired by both Pep and Klopp? Lijnders looks like he could be one of the best and most effective managers in the Premier League, and the Reds could do a lot worse than appointing someone who knows the current squad and the club philosophy inside out.