Next Liverpool manager: Jamie Carragher wanted Thomas Tuchel at Anfield

Liverpool are close to appointing Arne Slot as their new manager following an extensive search for a suitable candidate to replace Jurgen Klopp. 

Although there had previously been links with Bayer Leverkusen manager Xabi Alonso and the Sporting CP coach Ruben Amorim, Liverpool’s data-driven search has ended up with the Feyenoord boss on top. 

Slot, 45, has won the Eredivisie title with the Rotterdam side and last week added the KNVB Beker (Dutch cup) to his collection. He is also a two-time Dutch manager of the year. 

The Dutchman confirmed on Thursday his intentions to move to Anfield in order to take over the position vacated by Klopp.

But the appointment is not being met with enthusiasm all around with club legend Jamie Carragher previously expressing his reservations over Slot, fearing that moving from the Eredivisie to the Premier League could be too big a step. 

Acknowledging the dearth of managerial targets out there, Carragher nonetheless put forward his preferred name for the Liverpool job. 

Thomas Tuchel won the Champions League during his time at Chelsea, and took Paris Saint-Germain to their first-ever final in that competition back in 2020. 

Carragher backs Tuchel for Liverpool job

He won the Bundesliga title with Bayern Munich last season but will be relieved of his duties at the end of this season having been eclipsed by Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen. 

Bayern, however, are still in with a shout of Champions League glory, reaching the semi-final stage, and there are certain elements within the Bayern fanbase who would like Tuchel to stay. 

While Carragher doesn’t believe Liverpool’s current data-driven approach to recruitment would lend itself to hiring Tuchel, he is of the opinion that the 53-year-old is a ‘proper’ manager who can hold his own alongside Pep Guardiola. 

“It's not like you're bringing a Champions League manager,” Carragher told The Overlap of Slot’s impending appointment. “Liverpool are always going to be data-driven.

“The one manager who's out there who is proper and is available is Thomas Tuchel and I just don't think Liverpool would go for those type of managers now with the setup they've got behind the scenes.

“It [Slot] feels like an appointment you'd make when Liverpool were trying to get back in the top four. 

“Right now Liverpool are probably in the best top five or six teams in Europe and they have been for a few years and that's why I go back to Tuchel. 

“He's beat Pep. I think of a guy standing on the sideline and you're a Liverpool supporter and thinking he can go up against him? 

“If he gets to the final, he’ll have been in three of the last six Champions League finals. I know it hasn't gone perfectly at Bayern Munich for him but the job he did at Chelsea and trying to take on Klopp at Liverpool and Pep’s Man City, he's got something.”