Xabi Alonso has already told Liverpool fans what to expect after Jurgen Klopp leaves

Liverpool would be hiring a manager that values the process, should they select Xabi Alonso to replace Jurgen Klopp in the Anfield dugout. Klopp shocked the footballing world on Friday morning as he announced his decision to step down at the end of the current Premier League campaign.

This is Klopp's ninth season in charge of the Reds and with the club five points clear at the top of the Premier League table and competing on all four fronts, he has the opportunity to leave Merseyside on a remarkable high. His players and coaching staff will be focused on delivering the perfect send off for the German, but behind the scenes the work has started on finding his successor.

For many, Alonso seems like the ideal candidate for the Reds. The current Bayer Leverkusen boss made 143 league appearances and scored 15 goals in a five-year stint at Liverpool during his playing days, and his record as a manager is enough to ensure he is worthy of taking the Anfield reins.

The Spaniard won promotion with Real Sociedad B in his first coaching role before heading to Germany in October 2022 to take on the Leverkusen job, with the club languishing in the Bundesliga relegation zone. Alonso quickly turned them around to finish 6th. This season, though, he has taken the club to a new level and prior to this weekend's round of fixtures they sat four points clear at the top of the division with an unbeaten record.

Alonso, then, is currently odds on for the job with the bookmakers and in an interview with The Sporting News, published earlier this week, Alonso outlined his philosophy and methods as a coach and a manager.

"For me, the priority is to get the commitment and involvement from the players," Alonso told The Sporting News. "And with that, we will start getting a football idea, doing the next steps. But I think that first you need to persuade the players, you need to convince them that we can play good football.

"When I see the things that we are training and the things we were preparing, they made us win games. So that was a straight impact. We do this, it works. I convince you easier. If I tell you something and it doesn't work, it's gonna be more difficult to convince you."

He added: "Sure you want to win, but if you win with a good performance, and you do what we have prepared to do, it feels better for sure. At the end our results...I'm not gonna say I prefer to to play well and lose, I know that is stupid. But if you deserve [the results] in the way you want them to, it feels better."