Liverpool should be looking to hire a proven top manager like Pep Guardiola or Jose Mourinho, not Andoni Iraola, believes former Reds striker Dean Saunders.
Arne Slot was sacked as Liverpool boss on Saturday after two years in charge, winning the Premier League in his first season at the club.
Expectations were sky high after that title success and a summer which saw the Reds spend big on the likes of Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike, Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez.
However, it was an extremely frustrating season for Liverpool fans, with results and performances below par, with Slot’s side finishing fifth and the Dutchman axed as a result.
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Iraola impressively led Bournemouth to sixth in the table and is expected to be named the new Liverpool manager imminently after leaving the Cherries at the end of his contract.
Saunders, who played for Liverpool in the early ’90s, is not so sure the Spaniard is the right choice, doubting his ability to step up to the pressurised situation of managing an elite club.
Instead the Welshman would have been looking at hiring the likes of Guardiola, Mourinho, Luis Enrique or even rehiring Jurgen Klopp.
‘Only certain people can manage Liverpool,’ Saunders told talkSPORT. ‘If I’m the recruitment team at Liverpool and I’ve sacked Slot, they would have thought that this bloke don’t know how to win games every week.
‘For Liverpool it’s a disaster if you draw. At a top club the rules are different. You’ve got to win every single game and you’ve got to know how to do it.
‘You think of people who know how to win football matches and know how to take the game to the opposition. They know how to break parking the bus down every week, they know how to do it.
‘Liverpool can pay the manager whatever they want. I would think, right we’re going to sack Slot who can we get? Jurgen Klopp, can we get Jurgen Klopp back?
‘What about Pep Guardiola? Can we get Pep Guardiola? Honestly! If we get any of them two, we’re going to win games and leagues.
‘Can’t get them. What about [Luis] Enrique? No don’t want to leave PSG.
‘What about Mourinho? Proven winner. Not the manager of Bournemouth. He would never manage Bournemouth! None of those managers would manage clubs half way up the league.
‘I would go through the list. [Carlo] Ancelotti, would he leave Brazil at the end of the World Cup and come and manage us?
‘I would go through that list, before I start going into [Xabi] Alonso, [Steven] Gerrard, Iraola, young managers. I would start with the people who know how to win football matches.’
The Athletic report that Iraola has verbally agreed a deal to become Liverpool manager and is set to sign a two-year contract at Anfield.
It will undoubtedly be a giant step for the 43-year-old, who has a glowing reputation, but has a managerial history of AEK Larnaca, Mirandes and Rayo Vallecano before his three-year stint with Bournemouth.