Portuguese manager Ruben Amorim is now the leading candidate to be the new Liverpool manager after Xabi Alonso’s stance was made known, but his current club, Sporting, will demand a large fee.
Thursday brought news that Liverpool are ready to move on from Alonso amid expectations that he intends to stay at Bayer Leverkusen beyond the summer, meaning the front-runner is out of contention.
It leaves Amorim and Brighton‘s Roberto De Zerbi as the two key names on the shortlist, though it is shouts for the former that continue to grow louder.
Amorim has his Sporting side currently positioned first in the Primeira Liga, and reports have suggested Liverpool would need to pay a ‘world-record fee‘ in compensation to prise him away.
Release fee
It is suggested that this would be as high as £25 million, though the reliable Paul Joyce, of the Times, states his release clause may be lower, at £17 million.
Either way, it is a sizeable figure for a manager who is not yet in the elite bracket, and any move from FSG would indicate a strong belief in his potential.
Management style
The 39-year-old is on the Reds’ current shortlist for good reason, his man-management and style of play tick plenty of boxes and has seen him ‘score highly’ in Liverpool’s data tests, as per the Mail.
Liverpool’s use of data is well known, and a recent assessment by BBC Sport identified Amorim as the ideal candidate to replace Klopp, assessing that he is the “compelling option.”
Amorim ranked higher than Klopp for strategic intelligence, tactical command rating and shot creation ratio, with allowances made for the Sporting manager operating in a less competitive league.
Style of play
The Portuguese manager is tactically astute, favours a back three, plays attacking football, his style is intense off the ball and he has a track record for developing young players.
From that alone, you can start to see why the data matches up well with what Liverpool are after, and if FSG deems he is their man, they will hope a deal can be struck with Sporting.
His proactive style has received plenty of praise, and Portuguese football journalist Tom Kundert spoke highly of the job he is doing at Sporting, telling This Is Anfield: “He’s been absolutely brilliant since he’s been at Sporting.
“You cannot really kind of overstate the impact which he’s had… If you just look at his record, he’s almost been a bit of a miracle worker.”
Importantly, too, his side are defensively very solid. Sporting have a +50 goal difference this season – 11 better than second-placed Benfica.
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