Liverpool is looking for its next manager with Jürgen Klopp soon set to depart. Sporting CP head coach Rúben Amorim appears to be the number one choice right now.
With Xabi Alonso now having publicly ruled himself out of the running to take over from Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool, the attention from fans will switch elsewhere. Rúben Amorim, it appears, is now the number one candidate, and just because Alonso has only now publicly confirmed his intentions, that does not mean that it caught the Reds by surprise.
At Anfield, the work on finding a successor for Klopp will have been long underway. Klopp informed FSG of his decision to leave all the way back in November and while almost no one else knew that until the turn of the year, Liverpool had a headstart when it came to sounding out potential options. Michael Edwards is now back in the fold to further that process and Richard Hughes has been installed as the new sporting director.
If it is Amorim, though, what will Liverpool be getting? Compared with Pep Guardiola by many of those who have watched his career so far, the 39-year-old Portuguese is a very impressive coach. As it stands, his side is on track to win the Liga Portugal again this year after Amorim was the man in charge when Sporting’s 19-year wait for a league title ended in 2021.
A former player for Benfica, Amorim needed to win over the Sporting fans given that rivalry. Winning the league in his first season will certainly have helped and he could come out on top again before potentially bowing out. Winning is crucial, but so too is the manner in which that is achieved, with Sporting having a collection of interesting players.
Viktor Gyökeres, Ousmane Diomande and Gonçalo Inácio are among his roster and Amorim often plays with a 3-4-3 system that relies on wing-backs. While that would not necessarily stay the same at Liverpool, it is an interesting exercise to consider how it might look if he did stick with that.
Conor Bradley has played as a wing-back before, while on loan at Bolton, and Andy Robertson could certainly do that down the opposite flank, perhaps with Trent Alexander-Arnold playing in midfield. Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konaté might have to get used to playing with another center-back alongside them, with O Jogo linking Liverpool not just with a move for Inácio this week, but also 20-year-old Sporting star Diomande, the latter of whom has a $86m (£68m/€80m) release clause to tempt the Reds (as well as Chelsea, Arsenal and Bayern Munich).
In the attacking positions, Darwin Núñez could be flanked by Mohamed Salah and Luis Díaz, as he is now, but they would have to tuck in even more than they already do. That forward role would be where Dominik Szoboszlai and Harvey Elliott would make most sense in a 3-4-3 as well, though fitting them in becomes more difficult.
Staying with a back four and keeping the system as it is — 4-3-3 with the squad set up to play like that — would appear to make a lot more sense. But the possibilities are there for Amorim, or whoever else it is that comes in, if they wanted to change things up, and regardless of the formation, signing another center-back is likely to be a priority this summer.
While Liverpool’s players are far more suited to playing with a back four as things stand, a couple of signings and an Alexander-Arnold position switch could open up new avenues. Just as was the case with Alonso, just because Amorim plays with a back three now, that does not mean that he would definitely do that at Anfield. It is, though, a possibility.
