With Jurgen Klopp set to leave Liverpool at the end of the 2023/24 season, Stephen Tudor ranks his top five Reds bosses of all-time...
5) Tom Watson
One of only four managers to win the league with two different clubs – the others being Herbert Chapman, Brian Clough and the next on our list, Dalglish – Watson brought success to Sunderland before doing likewise at Anfield.
With the club still in its relative infancy, the bowler-hatted Geordie remained on Merseyside for 19 years, securing two league titles and bringing through legends of the day, not least the incomparable Elisha Scott.
Other luminaries on this list can take credit for supersizing the Reds into a world-renowned giant but it was Watson who first made them a force to be reckoned with.
4) Sir Kenny Dalglish
A stonewall Liverpool legend and arguably their greatest ever player, Dalglish seamlessly transitioned into management, winning a historic double in his first season at the helm.
In a player/manager role it was appropriately the Scot who fired the Reds’ crucial winner at Stamford Bridge in their final game.
A further two titles followed, along with a brace of FA Cups, but it was not only the success that impressed during this era, but the fabulous team that Dalglish created.
John Barnes on the left and Ray Houghton on the right. Peter Beardsley floating around with John Aldridge finishing off the chances. It was unquestionably one of the finest assembles in the history of English football.
3) Jurgen Klopp
Dalglish may have won three times as many league crowns – to this point - as the German, but what he inherited was a finely tuned, all-conquering machine. Klopp meanwhile took charge of a club that had lost its way.
Arriving from Dortmund, he began by changing the mentality, instilling belief where prior there was only hope.
Outright Winner - Liverpool
He added players of the ilk of Mo Salah, Virgil Van Dijk and Alisson and, most fundamentally, cemented a high-intensity style of football that left opponents mauled and bewildered.
A plethora of silverware duly followed, along with three Champions League finals, and perhaps importantly too, in the age of the personality manager, Klopp’s charisma strongly connected with the Liverpool public. In his swansong season, he will be hugely missed come May.
After enduring an underwhelming 2022/23, the Reds weren’t overly fancied in our Premier League tips at the start of this campaign. It was in hindsight folly to underestimate a coach of such stature.
2) Bob Paisley
Paisley didn’t look like a typical football manager. Grandfatherly and amiable, he was often seen ambling down corridors wearing slippers and a cardigan. In appearance at least you’d heavily suspect there was a packet of Werther’s Originals in one pocket and a pipe in the other.
A sharper footballing mind however you’d be hard-pressed to find while his benign exterior belied a steely core that left the best players of his day fearful of disappointing him.
A member of Bill Shankly’s legendary ‘boot room’, Paisley took on the reins in 1974 and wasted little time in making Liverpool a dominant behemoth, the likes of which we had never before witnessed.
In his nine seasons in charge, the Reds won a remarkable 20 trophies. That included three European Cups.
Shankly made Liverpool great. Paisley made them indomitable.
1) Bill Shankly
Shankly was the architect of the imposing edifice that Liverpool has been for several lifetimes now but more so, he forged an emotional bond with the city that was almost as meaningful as the trophies.
The club resided in second tier obscurity when he took charge in 1959, but in due course they defied the football odds by becoming the most successful team in the country, revered and feared in equal measure.
Leagues were won, cups were conquered, and mythologies grew, stories that are still told today about this incredibly magnetic individual with a ready line in memorable quotes.
“My idea was to build Liverpool into a bastion of invincibility,” he once said. Boy, did he.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*
