It looks like Andre-Villas Boas may be leading the race to take over as King at Anfield. AVB was in my list of candidates to replace Kenny Dalglish as mentioned earlier along with Roberto Martinez, Paul Lambert, Rafa Benitez and Brendan Rodgers who has taken himself out of the running by rebuffing Liverpool's approach to Swansea.
As mentioned before, AVB is a young manager, hungry for success and hungry to prove that he was simply at the wrong club, at the wrong time, when he took on the Chelsea manager's role last year. AVB does have plenty of support from players and managers, especially in light of events at Chelsea where apparently the players had the final word.
The Chelsea situation in 2012 has been a bit like the situation at the Brumbies in 2004 when Nucifora was kicked out by the experienced Gregan, Larkham, Smith & Mortlock leadership group despite a Super 12 title-winning season.
At Liverpool, AVB is likely to come to a club needing someone to take charge. Yes there are the likes of Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher but unlike John Terry and Didier Drogba, they are club-first men, rather than me-first men. There is also plenty of youth at the squad that needs to be fine-tuned and developed which would also suit AVB's working style.
If AVB does go to Anfield, it is likely he will revert to a 4-3-3 starting formation and ditch the need for wingers - which would suit Liverpool very nicely given they haven't had any decent wingers in a while and the ones there are probably set to leave in the summer. The forwards will probably play a bit more in-field.
So given Liverpool's current squad, AVB could possibly play this team:
Reina (GK)
Enrique/Flangan, Coates/Carragher, Agger, Johnson/Kelly
Gerrard/Adam, Lucas, Henderson
Suarez, Carroll, Gerrard/Sterling
Steven Gerrard could operate in the free role behind Suarez and Carroll or revert to a deeper midfield role and open the door for Raheem Sterling or even Stewart Downing if AVB is brave enough to play him so far up front.
I think any manager including AVB should stick with Andy Carroll who in my opinion, is about to blossom - there were signs of that towards the end of last season that he may have found his mould at Liverpool. The emergence of Raheem Sterling towards the end of the season is also quite exciting and may be the push that Stewart Downing needs to get back on track.
Well, well, looks Liverpool might get their Special One after all. And I may be more open to AVB with his European experience as well as his record of winning the Portuguese title with Porto over the still-unknown quantity that is Roberto Martinez.
Martinez's time will come but I think the Liverpool job may not be the right one for him right now.
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