Never wanted Alonso anyway: Why Ange is the Postecoglou to hold post-Klopp Liverpool together

Xabi Alonso, excellent coach that he is, was never the right choice for Liverpool. Nor are Ruben Amorim or Roberto De Zerbi. They should be looking at Spurs…

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Postecoglou the man for Liverpool
Well said Ryan Baldi, perhaps the first football pundit in this country to actually “get it” so far.

When you replace Klopp, you’re not just replacing his tactical acumen (plenty of that), his legendary man management (too many examples to go into here) but you’re having to replace a figurehead, a personality, someone who brings a club together and gets everyone pulling in the same direction.

With all due respect, is Alonso all of that? I’m not really sure he is. He’s clearly a very good coach, as is Amorim and De Zerbi.

But do they do ALL that? I’m really not sure they do.

READ MORE: Forget philosophies and tactics; who has the personality to replace Jurgen Klopp?

You need someone who’s not scared of the job either. Someone who’s come up the hard way, and each time they’ve stepped up, they know they can still do it.

I’ve said this a few times now, but if you’re looking for all those boxes to be ticked, you could do a lot worse than Ange Postecoglou. He grafted for years, then he rejuvenated Celtic, very quickly. And he’s doing it again at Spurs, who were a mess before he went in, and had lost Kane. The football’s really good to watch. He can handle himself in the media (very important). Sure, there’ll be some concerns about his defensive record at Spurs, but don’t forget he’ll be working with better players. Oh….and he’s a boyhood Liverpool fan.

Spurs fans won’t like me for saying it, but in terms of a fit, Liverpool won’t find much better. It’s Big Ange for me.
Andy H, Swansea.

Chaos v comfort
Maybe the point Calvino, is that people can get their head round the City-Arsenal bore draw. After the match every man and his dog was saying how terrible that game was. But given time to think, people started looking at the history of that game and who was playing and started to think: “Declan Rice, Rodri, Saliba. City missing some players…. Yep, I can see what’s happened here.”

What do people think when they see United – fresh from a scintillating, chaotic victory over the Premier League leaders – being awful against a Brentford side who’d be in a proper relegation battle if Luton stopped throwing games away?

“Oh right, yer….um…..injur…er……..Nope.”

I suspect people don’t like it when they can’t really understand what’s happening and as Mr Nicholson says, people also don’t like uncertainty. United being rubbish seems to delight and confuse in equal measure.

If people would just accept that United are on a very slow path back to the top (if we even get there) then they’d be able to enjoy our wildness (or rubbishness) while it lasts.
Ash Metcalfe

MAILBOX: Are you entertained? What’s better – Man Utd chaos or Man City control?

The answer to the question is – we want to see winning with style.

Watching Man City is like watching a machine at work. Very clever and interesting for about 10 minutes. But ultimately unsatisfying.

Maximus Decimus Meridius of Gladiator fame got it right. Make it look like the other team have a chance, then pull it out of the bag right at the end.

Actually, Valentino Rossi managed to do the same for long periods of his career too.
Jon

Spurs a fraction away from competing
Tom is right, absolutely right.

I think, when I said two players away from being competitive with the three at the top, I based that on a lack of luck with a run of absences which we simply couldn’t handle. Had those injuries not have happened, and each team who’ve been blighted by them this season will have their hand raised too, then who knows?

I do believe that the club is a fraction away from being good, and lucky. Good signings have come in for relative pittance, or from out of the blue, whilst big signings have almost routinely failed, however the set up behind the scenes has improved so much that there is trust among the support, not wholehearted, but trust nonetheless, that signings will be made based on the immeasurable but also the basics. Ndombele will be an albatross Levy’s neck, so now, big money signings need to have more than just a YouTube check.

I’d say that the signings made are all bar none, proving to be of significant value. Which is why, when I say big signings (two – probably three in honesty), I would say big upgrades not big money – like City can eat up without a seconds thought.

I look at the like of Arsenal and Liverpool because those were teams we were competing with five years ago before we derailed, the reasons being many but ultimately obvious, Tom makes this point well, the top of the Tottenham pyramid weren’t capable, and we tumbled away.

I hope Spurs can become another team to make the title race an unprecedented four way fight, or that Villa can make it it even more competitive. I suspect they’re about to find out that their bank balance will come under scrutiny, so maybe not them, but it would be great to have a league which functions on good and luck for multiple teams.

Or, we finish seventh.
Dan

The Villa reaction
City (Foden) were very good. We had half a team out.

We move on.
UTV. Paul

Manchester City to go trophyless
In recent weeks city fans and some pundits have been telling us that it’s only a matter of time before City go on their ‘unstoppable march’ and win the league. They always do. But they’ve just played their direct rivals and drawn both games. Draws they were seemingly happy to take, removing KDB at anfield for a pragmatic change whilst only managing one shot on goal against Arsenal. It’s almost like they were scared of loosing. Anyway a chance to take control of the league has been passed up and now they’re relying on other teams to do what they couldn’t do. I genuinely doubt they can win the league from here

They’re still in the UCL but I doubt they will win that too. They would have to get through Real and hopefully Arsenal to win it but their record against the big boys is poor and not a coincidence. They lost a lot of quality over the summer( gundogan, mahrez, palmer??) that were not replacement sufficiently. Kovacic won’t score you any goals, Doku is just a fancy Adams traore, Nunes is the new Phillips. Add to that Alvarez is having a poor season while Haaland continues to go missing in the big games. Did I mention the leaky defense? Now that I think about it there may not be an all English semi-final to look forward to.

Of course they are still in the FA cup and only one step away from facing their favorite punching bag. However, that game against Chelsea comes at an awkward time in-between the Real games. Even Pep doesn’t seem all too pleased with the timing meaning an upset isnt out of the question.

There I said it. City to go trophy less this season.
Philip

Arsenal discourse
Wish Arsenal had given it a go at the Etihad like Villa did last night, instead of playing for a decent point.

That’s what top teams do. Zzzzz
Jbrusty

I know a lot of people are going to moan that Arsenal didn’t do enough yesterday to look like they will be champions after only scoring 2 against an insipid Luton side and the amount of chances Arsenal actually conceded to them. I, however, don’t care about the number of goals scored yesterday. After a taxing defensive Sunday evening I am happy that we didnt break any sweat and still won the game and kept a clean sheet.

Yes we did’t do much but that’s a good thing because we will need that energy in another game which is just around the corner.
Posab (Arsenal seem to get critized for anything and everything these days) Botswana

Penalties and club bias
I had meant to respond with this point to Hartley MCFC Somerset’s prior mail about penalties and club bias, so I’m glad the MC decided to publish this second one Wednesday afternoon.

Hartley points out that clubs who have undergone managerial changes involving significant differences in style and tactics (ManUtd: Ole vs Jose, Chelsea: Tuchel vs Others, etc) had coinciding big changes in their penalty statistics. Hartley asks whether this is evidence that playing style is more important than club size, and I would answer ‘definitely yes’. Leicester being granted more penalties than any other club over a period of 9 years, + more home penalties than Liverpool at Anfield during that time, is hard to argue against.

But even if we refer back to Hartley’s prior mail, which reference stats from 2023-24 only, we can see signs of this. Brighton had as many penalties awarded (5) as MCFC MUFC and NUFC. Villa had as many home penalties awarded (4) as MUFC and NUFC, and are just behind Chelsea. Newcastle featuring on these lists to begin with is a further sign that it has to do with playing style and tactics.

The only outlier statistic seems to be the number of penalties awarded to Tottenham, based on both 2023-24 and on the 9 season period. Either Conte’s tenure at the club had an outsized impact on the 9 year statistics, or Tottenham may have a case to claim some sort of bias against them. But that’s an argument for Tottenham supporters to make, not me.
Oliver Dziggel, Geneva Switzerland

A quick question
I was reading a newsletter from The Anfield Wrap which cited a Liverpool defeat away at Tottenham in the 2008-09 season. I did not remember the match/the incidents in question, so I looked up the highlights.

This prompted me to remember that Robbie Keane did, in fact, exist, and that Robbie Keane did, in fact, play for Liverpool FC.

This led me to wondering, who are the biggest/most famous footballers that other Mailbox contributors entirely forgot about?
Oliver Dziggel, Geneva Switzerland