WHEN Jurgen Klopp announced his Liverpool departure plan back in January, Roberto De Zerbi was installed as second favourite to succeed him.

When the favourite, Xabi Alonso, announced in late March he would be staying at all-conquering Bayer Leverkusen, De Zerbi’s Brighton were the next visitors to Anfield.

And the match was billed as the Italian’s audition for the job.

De Zerbi was also strongly touted as a successor to Erik ten Hag at Manchester United and Thomas Tuchel at Bayern Munich.

And given that Chelsea nab everybody else from Brighton, he was also seen as a major contender to take over at Stamford Bridge if Mauricio Pochettino departed.

This high-octane, nicotine-fuelled, touchline frog-box was Europe’s most-wanted coach.

He guided Brighton into Europe for the first time, his team was hugely entertaining — combining Kloppish manic intensity with a Pep Guardiola purity — and everybody seemed to want a slice of him.

De Zerbi certainly wasn’t shy in recognising as much.

Hence his tendency to gob off about his frustrations with frequent public hints that Brighton, the most widely-admired and pound-for-pound best-run club in England, were not run to his liking.

Fast forward a few months and the Italian is unemployed, with no job offers on the table and looking increasingly unlikely to get a step up to United, Bayern or Chelsea this summer while Liverpool have   plumped for Dutchman Arne Slot.

Last week’s decision from De Zerbi, 44, and Seagulls owner Tony Bloom to part ways was a rare example of ‘mutual agreement’ meaning mutual agreement.

Brighton have somehow contrived to finish in the bottom half of the Premier League — below their hated rivals Crystal Palace.

That might be largely down to a substantial injury crisis but Bloom’s main concern was his manager’s agitations about the club’s recruitment policy.

The most remarkably profitable recruitment policy the Premier League has ever known.

When Brighton went off-piste and signed Mahmoud Dahoud on a big-wage free from Borussia Dortmund last June, on De Zerbi’s insistence, the midfielder bombed and was loaned back to the Bundesliga with Stuttgart.

Bloom knows what he is doing. His club’s ability to conjure up outstanding young talent for next to nothing, to sell on for a major fee and then replace like-for-like, borders on witchcraft.

One of the latest to roll off the production line, Irish centre-forward Mark O’Mahony, looks so similar to Brighton’s first-choice Irish centre-forward Evan Ferguson, you wonder whether Bloom has some futuristic cloning facility in a bunker beneath the Amex.

Yet an impatient De Zerbi doesn’t want to work within Brighton’s structure and has earned himself the unwelcome reputation of being a high-maintenance manager.

Despite his progressive tactics, he is old-school in his desire for autonomy in an age in which owners demand managers — or ‘head coaches’ — know their place within a club’s ‘model’.

A generation ago, when those big-personality alpha-male managers were the norm, De Zerbi would have been in an A-list job already.

As it stands, it is unlikely that we will see him starting next season in the Premier League.

For example, it’s difficult to imagine Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Sir Dave Brailsford opting for such an abrasive personality to take charge of United should Ten Hag, as expected, get the bullet after Saturday’s FA Cup final.

This is a shame for De Zerbi and for the many of us who have enjoyed watching his progress.

While Brighton were never a great long-term fit, let’s hope he is back before long.

The Italian is innovative, infectious and absolute box-office gold.

Somebody needs to have the balls to appoint a manager who will challenge them, rather than one who will keep his trap shut and do as he is told.