Coach or Manager: Who Runs Liverpool?

The big issue in this rant, really, isn’t one dodgy interview line or one poor run. It’s the feeling that Liverpool have slipped into a modern setup where the boss is a coach first and a leader second, and when it goes wrong there’s too much room for people to point elsewhere.

Part of the comparison being made is simple: rival managers have picked up domestic cups, while Liverpool’s recent return to major silverware is seen as too thin for a club that measures itself by trophies, not vibes. That’s the sting. Not just losing, but the sense of underachieving while being told the process is fine.

The wind excuse and the trust gap

Fans can forgive a bad result. What they don’t forgive is being talked down to. If a post-match line lands badly, it hangs around. Mentioning the wind, for example, will always grate because everyone watching knows both sides play in the same conditions, and you swap ends at half-time.

To be fair, managers say all sorts in the heat of it. But when there’s already tension, little comments start feeling like symptoms: excuses instead of ownership, deflection instead of clarity. That’s how you lose trust, even with people who want you to succeed.

One voice steering the ship

The strongest point here is about control. The old-school view says a football club should have one figure driving it: choosing the players, shaping the squad, living with the consequences. Not a committee. Not a blurred line where recruitment sits somewhere else and the coach just “works with what he’s given”.

When supporters talk about Shankly and Paisley, or Clough, Ferguson and Klopp, it’s not nostalgia for tracksuits and shouting. It’s about authority. Those managers didn’t just pick a team on Saturday. They set the standards, controlled the culture, and made the club move in one direction.

The director of football model: progress or problem?

This is where it gets messy, because modern football is built on specialists. Plenty of clubs do well with sporting directors, analysts and recruitment departments. But when it’s not working, the structure becomes the story, and every signing or contract decision turns into “who actually wanted this?”.

The frustration in the fan view is that Liverpool have tried different versions of this before and it hasn’t always ended well, so the idea of non-footballing decision-makers having major influence will always be questioned. The worry is simple: if nobody is clearly in charge, then nobody is properly accountable when it falls short.

And that’s the real question being asked. Not just “why are results poor?”, but “who is truly driving Liverpool right now?”

Written by 007: 25 January 2026