Liverpool linked to Salah's heir apparent

There is nothing in football quite so insane as mainstream media when large countries need to replace their head coaches. There’s just something about the combination of nationalism, football, and vacant job openings that brings out the dumbest of takes.

Let me give you just a brief example from last week.

• Former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp is not interested in taking the England job. (Sky Germany)

• The Football Association are willing to wait for Pep Guardiola to leave Manchester City before appointing him as Gareth Southgate's permanent successor as England boss. (Independent)

• Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou is also among the candidates to replace Southgate. (Telegraph)

The English FA are willing to wait for Pep Guardiola.
As long as it takes.
For him to take their vacant managerial job.
Some day.

National team coaching positions are weird. They are typically staffed by former club coaches who either can’t cut it at the club level anymore but have enough friends in the FA to get the job, or who want to ease themselves into a retirement via a well-paid, part-time-ish job. This combines to typically produce a lower quality of coach than we see in league play around the world.

Then you combine that with a group of players you see a few times a year, and for two very intense months every other year. These players are completely out of your control, have strict demands and regiments at their clubs for how they eat, sleep, train and take care of themselves, and you never quite have enough time to instill a real tactical style of play.

From a media perspective, the result of the above is that everyone is fair game for a rumour — competent, available, or otherwise. And it shows in the names that are thrown out into the media. Most of the employed are simply angling for additional contract years or a nice raise at their current jobs. Most of the unemployed are there by choice (Klopp), or desperately want to get back into the best club job possible (Tuchel), not downshift to national team oversight.

Even weirder, though, is the U.S. position. The US Men’s National Team job is the highest paid/highest prestige one in the country. It feels like both a million years ago and just yesterday that Jurgen Klinsmann was earning a hefty check to revolutionise both the national team and U.S. coaching ranks. That was an excellent sales job by someone, but the result was hot garbage.

With the USSF moving on from Gregggg Berhalter two weeks ago, the U.S. finds itself once again in a position of need and potentially revolution, but the list of candidates is far less inspiring than the one English media produces. Wilfried Nancy is good, but fairly unproven at any level. Same for Steve Cherundolo, who like Nancy coaches one of the better MLS sides right now, but has only lead a team since 2022. Patrick Vieira recently left his job at Strasbourg and has reportedly been in negotiations with USSF for the top job. He’s had a variety of jobs across Europe, and at no point have his teams proven tactically excellent or produced performances beyond the expectations of their budget.

Big Name + Uninspiring Resume = World Cup Success?

Other names thrown around include Thierry Henry (maybe let him find success anywhere else first, lads), Gareth Southgate (who coached England to the level of their talent and nothing more. If he does that for the US team, they’ll enjoy another Round of 16 exit as a likely best case result.), and Jesse Marsch, who might be the best American coach right now, but was just recently signed by neighbors to the North, Canada. There’s an interesting argument at this point in time whether Canada has a better overall talent level than the U.S. (certainly Jonathan David and Alphonso Davies would start every USMNT game), and while Marsch has potentially coveted the U.S. job for almost a decade, he might also enjoy seeing whether he can outperform the institution that spurned him for so long.

On the other hand, the Canadian FA has been on the verge of Broke Broke for a couple of years, while the US is headed into a home World Cup cycle with all the advertising dollars on the planet focused on the event.

Another jaw-dropper pitched by The Guardian last week was David Wagner. Described as "an evangelist of intense, counter-pressing football” and “a graduate of Jurgen Klopp’s School of Heavy Metal,” the author of the article proved far more adept at turns of phrase than ever having watched David Wagner’s teams play football.

I watched those Huddersfield teams in both the Championship and the Premier League. They looked nothing like “Klopp DNA.” His Schalke team in 19-20 was terribad. I also watched more Norwich last season than I wanted to, and at no point in Wagner’s career have this teams given off a single, solitary whiff of Jurgen.

If I had to make a decision between hiring any vaguely competent coach from inside the USMNT structure or David Wagner, Any Competent Coach would win out by a U.S. country mile.

My mental health demands I watch LESS David Wagner-coached teams, not more. Please do not do this to your fanbase, USSF, they are begging you.

[For more on the USSF search, check out Ryan O’Hanlon’s piece at ESPN.]

Anyway, all of this wraps back around to the following: Appointments for both jobs will probably be boring/uninspiring like Le Grande Samuele Allardici was for England in 2016. But the winners of Euros and World Cup/Copa America were similarly unexciting candidates from the youth international coaching ranks of Spain and Argentina, and look where they are now.

Were those coaches gifted positions with the most talented teams in the world at the time? Yes.

Should England and the U.S. focus as much as possible on building the resources and pathways for players and coaches to become that instead of spunking down massive money on unexciting coaching candidates that move the needle less than generational talent?

Also yes.

News and Rumours

• You might have heard a few times now that Mohamed Salah is getting older and Liverpool will need to sign a younger left-footed attacker who can take over his role. Today they’ve been linked to Real Sociedad winger Takefusa Kubo, who could cost them around £52m. At first glance, this looks like an odd one. 7 goals, 4 assists, and this rather pedestrian shot map.

• But StatsBomb’s OBV metric loves Kubo — he’s top among La Liga wingers, making positive contributions with his dribbling and passing. He’s also in a defensively sound Real Sociedad team that appears to be suppressing the attacking stats of its players generally. This feels very high risk, but there’s also plenty of evidence Kubo would pop in a different system.

• Newcastle and Chelsea would both like to sign Aston Villa striker Jhon Duran, but he’s reportedly told his current club that his preference is to play for West Ham if he’s sold.

• If they sell Duran (and don’t land Nico Williams), Fab says Villa could make a move for João Félix. Villa sure is doing a bit of a wild overhaul for a team that was really good last year?

• Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg is likely headed to Marseille for the same price Tottenham paid for him 4 years ago. This Spurs fan (Kim) says thank you for your service.

• Crystal Palace are apparently bidding £30m for Emile Smith Rowe, which would be a nice pure profit for Arsenal to bank.

• Palace might need Smith Rowe very badly if they sell Eberechi Eze to Manchester City, who are only going to bid if Kevin de Bruyne goes to Saudi Arabia. Players have not been making that move frequently this summer despite all the rumours, so we’re guessing KdB’s agent is just trying to get a contract extension out of his current employers.

• Jadon Sancho was previously rumoured to only be interested in a move to Juventus, but apparently PSG have entered the mix and he’d be cool with that too.

• Dani Olmo has an agreement on personal terms with Barcelona, who now has to figure out how to get RB Leipzig to sell him. Heaven knows they can’t just pay the €60m release clause up front.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, we’d appreciate it if you would forward it to a friend. If you’re that friend, welcome! You can subscribe to The Transfer Flow here. We also have a podcast where we go in depth on transfer news and rumours every week. We’re on YouTube here, and you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify by searching for “The Transfer Flow Podcast.”