I remain open to Slot, but I am plagued by concerns, which I would state as folllows:
1. Profile: When FSG brought in Klopp he was the most sought after manager in Europe. Slot is a legend in his own back yard, it's not quite the same thing.
2. Previous: While FSG had incredible success with Klopp (and have been steady, if cautious owners) they are still unproven on managerial picks. Rodgers can be considered a positive and Dalglish helped pull the club back from the brink. But only Klopp can be considered an unqualified success.
3. Coming from a weak league: Ten Hag is Dutch and arrived with a very good reputation. It's clear now he is nowhere near the leading lights of management. Quite simply the Dutch league does not test a manager enough to reveal their weaknesses.
4. Player purchases: Slot will, naturally want to pick some of his own players. Klopp got Matip for a song, as an example. Ten hag spent 100s of millions on low quality players from the Dutch league. Again, simply put, Slot will want to shop from what he knows, but the league is piss and Dutch players are at an all time low quality wise.
5. Klopp hangover: Going from a legend to an unknown is going to be a hard transition for everyone.
6. Klopp lite: Slot appears to be favoured because he plays a similar style to Klopp. But a new departure is needed, trying to be Klopp 2.0 is highly unlikely to succeed. The players for one will not be persuaded if its more of the same, only not as good.
These are good points, and I do share in quite a few of them, but to offer a slightly more optimistic counter-argument:
1. This is not 2015 Liverpool - when we brought Klopp in we needed a top to bottom upheaval and to change the entire mentality and attitude around the club. Klopp did that, and we're being left in a much better place than when he arrived - the need for an absolutely transformational manager has somewhat lessened. Plus, Klopp was an obvious appointment at the time, but I simply don't think there is an equivalent out there right now. Alonso is not in that bracket (yet).
2. Fair, but again we've come a long way in the near 9 years since we appointed Klopp - the structure appears more sound, and ultimately we don't really have a choice but to trust that they will get it right.
3. It's really hard to know how this will pan out - Holland is a weak league but everything is relative, and he's won the league with a side assembled on a shoestring budget and vastly inferior players that he'll inherit here. He's got more experience right now than Arteta (whose side currently top the league) or Alonso did when they inherited their current sides - Arsenal and Leverkusen made what I'm sure would have been considered brave/risky appointments, and have reaped the rewards of that.
4. I think this is less of a concern with Edwards back in place - I'm sure he'll have a wishlist and he may want to work with some players again, or he may not (Klopp didn't) - either way, I think the idea that he'll do an ETH and bring over sub-standard players is probably misplaced - the shortlist will be drawn up by the boffins.
5. I think if this had happened say at the end of 19/20 or 21/22 this could be true, even halfway through this season, but now I'm not so sure - I do think there's an overwhelming feeling of winding down and coming to the end of a cycle about the side right now. Key Klopp players will likely move on, the team looks mentally and emotionally drained and devoid of ideas and it's all just starting to drift and peter out a little bit. It's the least energised the players or fanbase have been in a long while - I think that makes a fresh start easier to take for everyone.
6. This is probably the main concern I have, but I think we have to trust that the new coach will still have his own ideas even if the central tenets of our play remain the same. Plus it's not to say he won't or can't be adaptable. If nothing else, he'll probably find he has his own preferences amongst our current squad, which will bring a degree of freshness to proceedings - everyone starts with a clean slate. And realistically this was always more likely than going a totally different route that would have required extensive recruitment and changing the approach throughout the age groups. It's part of the whole reason for having recruitment be more governed by sporting director types - the club sets a vision, and you recruit for it, so if managers chop and change you don't end up with loads of players the new man doesn't want. Had we gone to a 3-4-3 Amorim style and bought in loads of CBs and WBs and sold some midfielders/wingers, what would happen if it didn't work and we're back in the managerial market again next summer, and all our top options like a 4-3-3.
