Xabi Alonso stays at Bayer Leverkusen: who will be Liverpool’s next manager?

With the news that Bayer Leverkusen manager Xabi Alonso is set to stay at the German club, Liverpool’s search for a manager continues.

Bayer Leverkusen’s Spanish manager Xabi Alonso is set to stay at the German club, putting an end to the rumours that he could have joined Liverpool in the Premier League.

Current Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp announced this season that he is set to step down as head coach of the club after 8 seasons in England, sparking links with various coaches across the world, with Alonso one of the stronger rumours. That dream for the Liverpool fans, it seems, it set to stay that way for ay least another season.

In July 1974, Bill Shankly announced that he would be stepping down as Liverpool manager - weeks after watching his side lift the FA Cup at Wembley. A young Granada Reports journalist Tony Wilson had the task of breaking the shock news to a group of teenage kids on Lime Street - they stood ashen-faced in disbelief as they were told the grim news.

Half a century on, there are some parallels to be drawn with Jürgen Klopp’s decision to move on at the end of this season. Like Shankly’s resignation, it came as a bolt from the blue - no one saw it coming. The 56-year-old signed a two-year contract extension in April 2022, committing until 2026 and guaranteeing continuity to the project he started with his appointment in October 2015.

The news that Klopp will leave Anfield at the end of the season came as a bombshell to fans on Merseyside - the announcement coming just a couple of days after Liverpool booked their place in the EFL Carabao Cup final, with the team in a commanding position near the top of the Premier League table and alive in the Europa League.

But in another sense, by closely listening