Manchester City have made an annoying habit of frustrating the life out of Liverpool supporters in recent years, and they could do so again over the next 12 months.
According to Football Transfers, the Premier League champions are intent on pursuing Xabi Alonso as their next manager if Pep Guardiola steps down at the end of next season as he’s previously suggested.
A source told the outlet that the Bayer Leverkusen boss is the only candidate that Etihad Stadium chiefs are ‘seriously considering’, with a unanimous view that the former Reds midfielder would be the perfect successor to his fellow Spaniard.
Liverpool, of course, had sought the 42-year-old as a replacement for Jurgen Klopp earlier this year before he reaffirmed his commitment to the now Bundesliga champions, with Arne Slot instead appointed at Anfield.
It’d be a sore sight for Liverpool fans to absorb if Alonso were to become the next Man City manager, especially after turning down a seemingly perfectly-timed opportunity to take the reins at the club with whom he won the Champions League in 2005.
The 42-year-old is adored on the red half of Merseyside, but that legacy could be viewed far less positively if he were to link up with one of our biggest rivals, especially considering the accusations which continue to hover over the Manchester club.
A shadow has been cast over their plethora of on-field success under Guardiola amid the ongoing 115 charges against them for breaching the Premier League’s PSR regulations, and the legal action they’ve brought against the English top flight has further sullied their standing among many football fans in this country.
Should the subsequent investigations find City guilty and see some heavy punishments administered, with some reports citing the possibility of them incurring a massive points deduction or even being relegated.
If the latter were to happen, surely a manager on Alonso’s upward trajectory wouldn’t leave a stable environment in Leverkusen for a club reeling from the scale of penalties which’d be unprecedented in English football.
Of course, there’s no certainty that Guardiola will leave next year, or that his fellow countryman would want to take over at the Etihad if the 53-year-old departs. We can only hope that the former Anfield midfielder doesn’t risk tainting his Reds legacy by teaming up with a club who’ve inflicted plenty of misery on us in recent times.
