Why Thiago Motta should be on Liverpool's shortlist to succeed Klopp
Even before Jurgen Klopp had announced he would step down as Liverpool boss at the end of the season Xabi Alonso was being lined up as his obvious successor for reasons of the head and the heart.
However, he will be staying put at Bayer Leverkusen this summer, much to the disappointment of fans who had already become enamoured by the romantic idea of bringing their Champions League-winning playmaker back to Anfield as manager.
Alonso, it could be argued, would have been too perfect of an appointment this summer. Klopp’s departure was already going to be an emotionally-charged moment for the club. Add in the fan service of a returning hero, possibly Liverpool’s most beloved midfield player of the last 25 years after Steven Gerrard to boot, and it could have become all too much.
Expectations would have inevitably soared as Alonso set about trying to live up to the fantasy this reunion would encourage. He would come in, possibly taking the reins of a title-winning team, with everything to lose and little to gain. A clean break could be the smart move to manage the already high stakes that are at play.
Yet in terms of the actual football he has his team playing, Alonso very much would have been the smart move. His work in Germany has seen him hailed as a coach whose methods hint towards where football is going next, and Liverpool cannot merely be looking to replace Klopp. They also need to be looking to make an appointment who can lead them on an evolutionary path beyond the current thinking of Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta if possible.
Bayer Leverkusen have been credited with blending the principles behind how Arsenal and Manchester City’s managers set up their teams to play but with more fluidity when in possession. Rather than sticking to a strict structure with the ball where no more than three players can occupy the same horizontal band on the pitch, and no more than two can line up in the same vertical zone, Alonso’s players are allowed to roam. They often drift closer to each other, clustering up to offer options and play intricate combinations in tight spaces to bamboozle and beat defenders.
In this way it is reminiscent of the new school of Brazilian football that has emerged in recent years as a very particular off-shoot of the “positional play” template associated with the likes of Guardiola ever since his initial success with Barcelona. The style of play put forward by Brazil manager Fernando Diniz at Fluminense has at times been hailed as football without positions to give an idea of why it is so radical.
Alonso isn’t the only coach securing impressive results while trying to find a new cutting edge on the tactics board. Over in Italy, Thiago Motta has Bologna five points clear of Roma in fourth place with eight games left to play. Last season he led the Red and Blues to ninth, their best finish since 2002. The last time they finished within the top four was in 1967. While Motta may not be in the running to potentially win three trophies this season like Alonso, he is doing an excellent job in an interesting way.
Bologna, like Leverkusen, elaborate on the rules that the most elite sides in European football follow. Motta sets his team out in either a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 shape and they press high with real intensity to win the ball back ideally inside the opposition’s half. They are second in Serie A for tackles per game (16.7) and second for average possession (58.3%) behind only Napoli. It’s when Bologna have the ball that they begin to break the mould.
It starts from the back. Motta’s centre-backs are happy to step up all the way into midfield and beyond. Riccardo Calafiori especially has licence to get up the pitch or dribble out wide. Signed last summer from Roma as a wing-back before he has been converted into one of the most impressive ball-playing defenders in Italy this season.
In midfield, whether they’re playing with a single or double pivot, the players and their roles further confound expectations drifting wide, dropping in the backline or surging forward as the situation unfolding dictates. Motta wants as many members of his team to be as involved in the play as possible and is more than happy for whole areas of the pitch to be left unmanned to create space.
This readiness to break from a formal structure to build moves insteading of maintaining their shape in possession is a key departure from the coaching of Guardiola and co. No team in Serie A have played more short passes than Bologna this season with 15391, just ahead of Napoli, thanks to the combinations between their players in close quarters to keep their attacking patterns from getting predictable.
Roberto De Zerbi is another manager who has been linked with the Liverpool job in recent weeks, and hailed as an innovator in his own right, but there are question marks over whether Brighton’s style of play could work at Liverpool to the same effect. Not because there is necessarily a flaw in the Seagulls or their approach. The context is just different at a club like Liverpool who are expected to dominate as the favourites in the majority of their games. Brighton are far from being a negative side but the way in which they seek to draw their opponents into pressing them before playing through their attempts to do so may fall a bit flat when teams are prepared to sit back and step off.
On the contrary, the sheer amount of trust Motta places in his players and their ability to improvise, use their initiative and show their quality would surely work to even greater effect if the Brazilian were given the chance to work with an even stronger squad. Liverpool’s dressing room is already filled with footballers who possess the versatility and skill to take these ideas further: Alexis Mac Allister, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Dominik Szoboszlai, Harvey Elliot and Trent Alexander-Arnold would all be up to the task.
Klopp’s own approach has also differed to Guardiola even as the two managers have influenced and learned from each other over the years. The Liverpool boss has been happier to pack his midfield with runners rather than passers, shift the emphasis to his front three and the full-backs and play with more a readiness to rush the opposition on the break after catching them in possession. He did temper his approach over time to take more control over games instead of seeking to create total chaos as appeared to be the plan early on but that remains part of his team’s DNA.
It would be highly unlikely for Motta to even be considered for the Liverpool job this summer but that doesn’t mean 41-year-old isn’t a fascinating alternative to Alonso, a manager who will surely end up at Anfield one day. For now, the Brazilian could be an appointment to lay the groundwork for the Spaniard while moving on from Klopp without overwhelming his successor with ideas of legacy, lineage and destiny.
