The hardest part for the next Liverpool manager won’t be trying to meet the expectations of the heavyweight club, but replacing Jurgen Klopp.
On top of the success the Liverpool legend has achieved. From that night in Madrid to ending the club’s 30-year wait to become champions of England.
Just replacing Jurgen Klopp in itself is going to be difficult beyond belief, especially when he is leaving when fans least expected it.
Plus, the likes of Arsene Wenger at Arsenal and Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United have proven that trying to step into the shoes of men who have had such stability at the club is extremely difficult.
In fact, every time, it’s ended in one way and one way only, that manager struggling and then getting booted out.
One man who knows exactly what that is like is a certain Unai Emery, who replaced Wenger at Arsenal in 2018, but was out of the door 18 months later.
Now at Aston Villa, Darren Bent thinks he is doing an ‘absolutely incredible’ job, with the team the fourth-best team in the Premier League and aiming to win the Europa Conference League.
With Emery’s naming popping up to be Liverpool’s next manager, Bent questioned if the 52-year-old would want to put himself in such a situation again where he has to replace such a legendary coach, as he told talkSPORT.
Of course, Villa wouldn’t want to let their thriving and very popular manager go, but as Bent touched up, Liverpool are the ‘bigger club’.
Unai Emery as the next Liverpool manager
“What he has done is absolutely incredible,” said Bent about Emery’s job at Villa. “It’s about tactical, having a game plan, sticking to it and principles and he has got that.
“Liverpool are a bigger club, it’s a fact. But the thing is that he has been burnt before by doing that. He went to Arsenal. Not that he wasn’t ready. The club wasn’t ready yet. Wenger had been there for 20 years+. If he had stuck with what Wenger had done, then he might have lasted a little longer.
“So, then going into Liverpool after what he (Klopp) has done. Do you really want to do that again? You almost want to be the guy following that guy.”
It’s not Jurgen Klopp
That’s probably the biggest heartbreak of all this for Liverpool fans, the next man in the dugout won’t be Klopp, regardless of who he is.
When you take to the Anfield dugout, you need character and the ability to control everything around you with just your man-management skills.
Klopp has that in abundance and during his years in the Premier League, he has been an absolute master at it.
Liverpool somehow, with their next manager, need to replicate that because that is going to be needed more than the ability to tactically tweak a game.