How would Liverpool line up under Xabi Alonso?

Stuart Telford

• Updated: 16 Feb 2024 13:44 GMT
• 3 min read

Jurgen Klopp is leaving Liverpool. Xabi Alonso is the favourite to replace him. How would the Reds line up under the current Bayer Leverkusen manager?

Klopp shocked the football world - if not FootballTransfers, who first ran the story in August - when he confirmed that he would be leaving his post as Liverpool manager at the end of the season.

With the dust now settled, attention now turns to who might replace the German fan favourite, and Alonso is fast emerging as the frontrunner.

A Liverpool legend who won the Champions League with them as a midfielder in 2005, Alonso has steered Leverkusen to the top of the Bundesliga, five points clear of Bayern Munich, and the midway point of the season.

Bayern are reportedly interested in him, as are another former club in Real Madrid, but if Liverpool got their man, how would they look?

Liverpool under Alonso?

From Mohamed Salah to Virgil Van Dijk, Liverpool boast some of the best players in the world in their positions - although the former might not be there by the time Alonso returns to Anfield, with the Saudi Pro League pushing hard to make him their next flagship signing.

Liverpool have largely played a 4-3-3 under Klopp, but Alonso rarely deviates from a 3-4-2-1 at Leverkusen, and he would likely keep his system in place, at least at first. Fortunately for him, he can populate it well at Anfield.

Alex Grimaldo and Jeremie Frimpong have been standout performers at Leverkusen - the wingbacks are the top-scoring defenders in Europe with 39 goal contributions between them - and Liverpool could hardly have full-backs better suited to Alonso's game in Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold.

At Leverkusen, Grimaldo inverts, Frimpong overlaps. Those roles would switch flanks at Liverpool, but there is no reason it wouldn't work.

As well as Alonso, Liverpool are reportedly scouting two Leverkusen players in Florian Wirtz and Piero Hincapie, meanwhile.

Wirtz might not be a direct replacement for Salah, but his ability to break the lines in the final third, with and without the ball, would be invaluable, whether he had Dominik Szoboszlai, Luis Diaz or Diogo Jota alongside him as the second 10.

The left-footed Hincapie would provide balance for the back three.

From there, the current Reds squad is missing a player for Alonso's system: an athletic central midfielder. Granit Xhaka and Exequiel Palacios marshal his Leverkusen midfield, and of all the players on Klopp's shortlist, Khephren Thuram is the most likely to be kept on it by Alonso.