Replacing Jürgen Klopp: Finale

The final instalment of a five-part series dedicated to finding a successor to Jürgen Klopp using data

So here we are, we’ve reach the end of the tunnel. Over the course of the past few weeks, we’ve used data to draw up some form of shortlist of managers who could be capable of replacing the irreplaceable in Jürgen Klopp.

1. Setting the Scene

2. Managing a Heavyweight

3. Progression and the Penalty Box

4. The Business End

The purpose was to identify a playing style, in essence, as opposed to a person. For Liverpool to carry on as one of the best teams on the continent once Klopp departs, the Reds will have to keep recruiting elite players while coaching them to perform in a dominant manner.

Dominance means progressing the ball through the thirds of the pitch far more often than your opponents. It means finding the penalty box far more often than your opponents, and it means generating far more shots than your opponents, ideally from optimal locations.

The analysis conducted during this series has allowed us to recognise who the dominant managers are. We now know a lot more about the guys who can get their players to perform in a way that essentially sides with probability.

If you consistently dominate your opponents in key departments — progression, finding the penalty box and creating shots — AND you can field better players, you won’t lose very often. This is your blueprint for the post-Klopp era.

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So let’s take a closer look at the remaining candidates:

Sérgio Conceição, Julian Nagelsmann, Rúben Amorim, Carlo Ancelotti, Xavi, Thomas Tuchel, Roger Schmidt, Hansi Flick, Simone Inzaghi, Gian Piero Gasperini, Mikel Arteta, Andrea Pirlo, Xabi Alonso, Paulo Fonseca, Rudi Garcia, Ronald Koeman, Niko Kovač, Bruno Lage, Jorge Jesus, Artur Jorge, Roberto De Zerbi, Maurizio Sarri, Frank Lampard, Antonio Conte, Luciano Spaletti, Walter Mazzarri, Eddie Howe, Mauricio Pochettino, Marco Rose, Zinedine Zidane, Sebastian Hoeneß, Igor Tudor, Christophe Galtier, Ivo Vieira, Bruno Génésio, Ange Postegoclou, Luis Enrique, Erneste Valverde.

At this point, we’ve probably got more of a longlist than a shortlist, so we need to remove a few of the above names.

First of all, let’s get rid of the managers who are currently employed and seem highly unlikely to leave their posts to join Liverpool this summer. Goodbye Arteta, Ancelotti, Pochettino, Postegoclou and Enrique.

Now, let’s remove the managers who had at least three teams in the full sample but only made the grade once. Sarri, for example, had five outfits in the sample of ~700 teams, but he only made the final sample once with his Chelsea team from 2018/19. We don’t want a manager who might deliver a dominant playing style, we want one who will.

On that note, we can say goodbye to Sarri, Fonseca, Garcia, Kovač, Lage, De Zerbi, Lampard, Conte, Spaletti, Mazzarri, Howe, Rose, Zidane, Hoeneß, Galtier, Vieira, Génésio and Valverde.

It’s a shame to remove De Zerbi, mainly because his Shakhtar Donetsk team would have almost certainly met the grade, but this analysis only covers the big six leagues in Europe, so the only evidence we’ve got of his dominance is his Brighton and Hove Albion team from last term.

Those changes leave us with Nagelsmann, Amorim, Xavi, Tuchel, Schmidt, Flick, Inzaghi, Gasperini, Alonso, Koeman, Jesus, Tudor, Jorge and Pirlo.

Now this is supposed to be a data-fuelled process, but at this point, we can start to apply a bit of common sense.

Koeman is an ex-Everton boss, that isn’t going to happen. Tudor’s managerial record consists of one season at Hellas Verona and a good one at Marseille, so that link is a non-starter, and the same goes for Jorge. Pirlo? he’s done nothing of note since that 2020/21 campaign with Juventus, and Jesus — while he’s had a pretty good career — is currently managing in Saudi Arabia, so he’s a long shot.

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And then there were nine. Nagelsmann, Amorim, Xavi, Tuchel, Schmidt, Flick, Inzaghi, Gasperini and Alonso. All of these guys look good in the data, and they feel right having watched some of their teams perform in recent years.

I don’t think we necessarily need to conclude this series by picking an outright winner. The data helps with narrowing down the shortlist from too many options to just enough, exactly the same as when scouting for players.

Once you’ve used the figures to refine your search, then you can think about adding the context. Kylian Mbappé looks boss in the numbers, but he’s too expensive. Tuchel has some great performance evidence behind him, but would you really want to work with the person behind the manager? It seems unlikely.

Xavi, for whatever reason, just doesn’t feel very Liverpool and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why. Gasperini looks good, but he doesn’t speak English, which obviously isn’t ideal.

Finding another Klopp — who basically hit a home run in every department back in 2015 — is hard. He was dominant, collaborative, available, spoke the language, had 15 years of managerial experience behind him and was already a champion. He also had enough of a pull to attract the best players, improved youngsters, voted labour and embodied the Scouse spirit like nobody else.

You can’t recreate him, but you can find somebody who will establish similar — perhaps even better — dynamics on the pitch in a tactical sense. It’s probably out of Nagelsmann, Amorim and Alonso if we’re honest, with Flick, Schmidt and Inzaghi as your dark horses.

We’ll keep an eye on how the situation develops in the coming months, and once we know more, we’ll have a deeper look at each individual candidate and his claim to the throne.

Who is your pick for the job?