Liverpool Head Coach Candidates: Top Replacements After Arne Slot Firing

Liverpool announced they have sacked manager Arne Slot on Saturday. 

The club appeared set to stick by the Dutchman after he secured UEFA Champions League qualification on the final day of the Premier League season. While it was a disappointing season, there are questions around how much juice is left to squeeze out of this Liverpool team despite it winning the 2024-25 Premier League.

Even after a record transfer spend last summer, there is significant work to do on the squad. Centre-back Ibrahima Konaté is out of contract, while star winger Mohamed Salah has already announced he will be leaving. 

Liverpool will need to secure a new manager before moving forward with rebuilding this squad, and they will be expected to move quickly to do so.

The Favorite: Andoni Iraola

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Former Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola is the leading contender to replace Slot, according to The Athletic's David Ornstein.

The Spaniard drew heavy praise for his work on the south coast, developing and motivating players to perform far beyond expectations. 

He finished just three points behind Liverpool despite a summer transfer window that saw him lose his starting centre-back pairing of Ilya Zabarnyi and Dean Huijsen to Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid, respectively. Star attacker Antoine Semenyo also departed for Manchester City in January, and the Cherries responded to his loss by going 17 games unbeaten in the league.

So, a manager who achieves this much on a comparatively shoestring budget should get far more out of this expensively assembled Liverpool team, right?

It may not be that simple. There is risk in every managerial appointment, but taking coaches who have been successful at smaller clubs hasn't typically been that fruitful for the traditional Big Six (think Thomas Frank and Nuno Espirito Santo at Tottenham Hotspur and Graham Potter at Chelsea). All three of these men failed for various reasons, but complaints over an approach considered boring by fans and players are a consistent theme.

Iraola will need to show that he is able to adjust tactically to a very different situation. His Bournemouth teams found success with "intentionally provoked chaos," as explained in an analysis of his tactics by Spielverlagerung. 

This often eliminated both their and their opponents' ability to control matchups and nullified Bournemouth's talent disadvantages. How his approach can be adapted to fit a team that needs to accentuate its talent advantages could decide whether he is a success or failure when making the step up to Liverpool or elsewhere.

Outside Contender: Sebastian Hoeneß

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Behind Iraola, Sebastian Hoeneß of VfB Stuttgart and Pierre Sage of RC Lens were the other contenders mentioned by Ornstein.

Hoeneß joined Stuttgart in 2023. The year prior, they had finished 16th and had to endure a relegation playoff, but Hoeneß sparked an immediate turnaround and guided them to a 2nd-placed finish, albeit 17 points off champions Bayer Leverkusen.

He won the DFB-Pokal in his second season alongside a ninth-placed finish, and then helped Stuttgart finished fourth this season while reaching a second DFB-Pokal final.

Hoeneß has achieved these results by helping his team dominate possession more frequently. The year prior to his arrival, Stuttgart averaged 50.8 percent possession, a number that jumped to 60.2 percent in his first season, per FotMob. While possession isn't everything, Stuttgart made noticeable jumps in just about every other attacking metric.

This attacking intent could translate well to Liverpool, although it does seem somewhat similar to what they've already decided isn't for them in Slot. Hoeneß would also need to show that his approach is viable while competing in Europe and domestically, as that drop to a ninth-placed finish in his second season came while his team was also competing in the UEFA Champions League.

Outside Contender: Pierre Sage

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The Ligue 1 title race in France was surprisingly close this year thanks to Pierre Sage's Lens. They were top of the table as recently as March, and while overwhelming favorites Paris Saint-Germain eventually took the top spot by six points, Lens' performance has been enough to turn heads.

As analyst Beth Limb has explained, Lens are very intense out of possession and do not particularly care about controlling proceedings when they do win the ball, instead opting to keep the tempo of games high. 

This is comparable in overall approach to Iraola, although Sage's team typically operates in a 3-4-3 shape. The same questions with Iraola would likely also exist with Sage, but without the level of assurance that comes from having seen those strategies work in the Premier League already. 

Lens created (and missed) the most "big chances" in Ligue 1 and paired that attacking output with the fourth-best defense in terms of expected goals allowed, according to FotMob data, so luck doesn't appear to be a significant factor in their success either. 

However, Sage is in just his second top-level managerial position. While this season has been impressive, it's a surprise to see Liverpool linked with him at this stage.

Wild Card: Julian Nagelsmann

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German national men's team manager Julian Nagelsmann has a contract that runs until 2028, and he will be unavailable until at least June 25, and that's if his team doesn't make it out of the group stages of the FIFA World Cup.

Despite those factors, it's not impossible to imagine that he looks to jump back into club football — where he won a Bundesliga title with Bayern Munich and reached the UEFA Champions League semi-finals with RB Leipzig — after the World Cup.

During his time in Leipzig and before that with Hoffenheim, Nagelsmann was a hot name in the managerial rumor mill. Both his age (he is still just 38 years old) and accomplishments were enough to impress onlookers, and it wasn't surprising when Bayern Munich eventually brought him to the top job in German football.

What was surprising was how short it lasted, with Bayern jettisoning their young coach in March of his second season with the club just one point off first place in the Bundesliga and having just beaten Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League.

Despite any failings in Munich, though, Nagelsmann will still have a strong market if he leaves international football this summer.