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Liverpool have got a new manager. Just over a year after Arne Slot led the Reds to a record 20th English Championship, the Dutchman has been replaced in the dugout by Andoni Iraola. The change of manager has already lifted spirits around Anfield after a disastrous Premier League title defense that featured 12 defeats, while Liverpool were also hammered at home by Crystal Palace in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup, humiliated by Manchester City in the FA Cup quarter-finals and swept aside by Paris Saint-Germain in the last eight of the Champions League.
Slot was certainly not solely responsible for the Reds’ remarkable regression and he would probably have been forgiven for a trophyless campaign if his side had played with any great intensity. However, Liverpool looked mentally and physically fragile for the majority of the season, so it was not the least bit surprising that supporters grew tired of seeing their side struggle to score goals and keep interest on a weekly basis.
Sporting director Richard Hughes has thus tasked Iraola once again with repairing a broken team, having hired him at Bournemouth back in 2023. The Basque did a remarkable job with very little money to spend at the Vitality Stadium and, after losing almost his entire defense last summer, somehow led the Cherries to a historic sixth-place finish in the Premier League last season. The fact that he achieved the remarkable feat of playing ‘front football’ is the main reason why Hughes & Co. believes Iraola is the ideal man to turn things around at Anfield.
However, it will not be easy for Iraola. As the Spaniard sets to work in his new role, he has an awful lot of issues to tackle before the new season begins in August. Here, GOAL looking at the most urgent items in Iraola’s inbox:
Get Isak Firing
Usually, the last thing a manager wants is to see an important player on his way to a major international tournament. However, Slot claimed shortly before he was sacked that Alexander Isak’s participation in the World Cup could actually be a good thing for Liverpool.
After all, it is not as if the Swedish national team player was in danger of burnout. He started just 13 times during his injury-plagued first campaign on Merseyside. So one could easily understand why Slot thought it would be “very useful” for Isak to play “a lot of games” at the WC.
Of course, the obvious risk is that he breaks down again in North America, but Isak arguably needs minutes more than any other player in the Liverpool squad.
Indeed, it would be a massive boost for Iraola if the British record signing were to emerge from the tournament unscathed and with his confidence restored after stringing together some starts and maybe even scoring a few goals. The early signs are also encouraging, with Isak coming off the bench to score a stunning goal in Sweden’s friendly against Norway on Monday.
Given that Iraola joined Bournemouth three years ago, he’s clearly familiar with the Newcastle version of Isak – and that’s the version Liverpool need next season. Another four-goal campaign is completely unthinkable for a £125million player, so while the new manager will want Isak back for as much of pre-season as possible to impress upon him the importance of pressing, the World Cup could prove key in helping him get the very best out of his new No.9.
Iraola worked wonders with Eli Junior Kroupi at Bournemouth. Who knows what he could achieve with a fully fit Isak at Anfield?
What to do with Wirtz
It will be much easier for Iraola to get Isak fired if he can figure out how to unlock Florian Wirtz’s huge potential.
For a split second midway through the 2025-2026 campaign, it actually felt like everything was going to click into place for Liverpool. Isak, confidently converting a lovely little through ball from Wirtz in the 2-1 win at Tottenham on 20 December, gave long-suffering supporters a glimpse of a brighter future.
However, it proved to be no more than a blip as Isak was left with a broken leg after being taken down by Micky van de Ven immediately after scoring and would not play again in the Premier League for another four months.
Of course, Wirtz continued to show flashes of his undoubted genius – particularly while working alongside Hugo Ekitike before the Frenchman’s devastating year-ending injury. But while fate conspired against the Germany international on more than a few occasions, there’s no denying that Wirtz disappeared far too many times, and especially in big games.
However, the hope is that the change of style we are now set to see under Iraola will benefit £100m. the signing from Bayer Leverkusen, who should assume the No.10 role in the coach’s preferred 4-2-3-1 formation.
However, Wirtz is also under pressure to prove that he can cope with the intensity and physicality of the Premier League – thus rejecting claims that Liverpool would be better served by deploying the hard-running Dominik Szoboszlai ahead of Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis MacAllister.
Getting the composition of the midfield right is really of the utmost importance for Iraola because the Reds were repeatedly overrun last season, with Gravenberch providing more attacking threat but less defensive cover and Mac Allister looking completely exhausted.
So don’t be surprised if Iraola asks his new employers for the specialist No. 6 Liverpool have lacked for so long to ease the burden on Gravenberch, restore some much-needed balance to the side and allow Wirtz to go and do what he does best: create.
Develop Salah’s successor
Wirtz also obviously needs more quality options in front of him, especially as there is now a glaring gap on Liverpool’s right wing.
Despite dizzying talk of a swift return for Mohamed Salah following Castle’s sacking, the Egyptian king will not be returning to Anfield anytime soon and the hunt for a worthy heir to the throne has already begun.
It’s a thankless task, of course, considering we’re talking about an inside forward who both scored and assisted more goals than any other Liverpool player in Premier League history.
Of course, the club could – and should – have remedied this problem by signing Antoine Semenyo last summer. Instead, he was allowed to join rivals Manchester City for a £64million coup during the winter transfer window – and Liverpool will now have to pay a lot more than that if they are to land their top target, Yan Diomande.
Yet the work Iraola has done at Bournemouth, not only with Semenyo but also Rayan, suggests that whichever winger the Reds sign to replace Salah is capable of taking their game to a whole other level.
Help Jacquet settle down ASAP
Whether Liverpool will come to regret refusing to meet Ibrahima Konate’s wage demands is unclear at this stage. What we already know, however, is that the Reds are now light on experience in the center of defence.
Veteran captain Virgil van Dijk may have at least one more big season in him, but while Joe Gomez could stay on for another year despite more talk of a move away from Merseyside, the versatile England international simply cannot be counted on to stay fit.
With no one being sure how long it will take teenager Giovanni Leoni to get back up to full speed from his ACL injury, it is largely up to newcomer Jeremy Jacquet to hit the ground running.
The problem, of course, is that the 20-year-old spent a significant period on the sidelines even last season. Jacquet suffered a serious shoulder injury in Rennes’ Ligue 1 clash with Lens on February 7 – less than a week after his £60m summer move to Liverpool failed. was confirmed.
However, the word is that Jacquet has fully recovered and should be fully fit for the start of pre-season, which is just as well, really, as Iraola needs the Frenchman to quickly show why the Reds were willing to invest so much money in a defender with just 37 top-flight games under his belt.
Still, on the plus side, the former Bournemouth boss didn’t take long to get Dean Huijsen playing so well that Liverpool were interested in signing the Spaniard before he joined Real Madrid for €59.5m (£50m) last summer…
Convince Allison to stay
Liverpool knew that an increasingly injury-prone Alisson Becker was nearing the end of his Anfield career, so they put a legacy in place in the summer of 2024 by agreeing a deal with Valencia for Giorgi Mamardashvili that would see the Georgian move to Merseyside a year later. As a consequence, the Reds decided to allow their understandably annoyed No.2, Caoimhin Kelleher, to join Brentford for an initial £12.5m.
Unfortunately for up-and-coming Liverpool, both of these deals now look terribly bad. While Kelleher quite predictably played a crucial role in Keith Andrews’ Brentford surprisingly finishing ninth in last season’s Premier League, Mamardashvili looked far from comfortable during the majority of his first 20 appearances for the Reds.
Admittedly, the 25-year-old was not at all helped by the poor excuse of a defense placed in front of him, but there was a constant air of nervousness about him, especially with the ball at his feet.
Therefore, it is not the least bit surprising that Liverpool are reportedly no longer willing to allow Alisson to join Juventus. The Brazilian is still said to be keen on a move to Turin, but Iraola should do what he can to convince Alisson to stay another year at Anfield. He may not be able to play 50 games a season anymore, but it is clear that Liverpool need more time to find a more suitable successor than Mamardashvili.
Sort the problem
The news that Jeremie Frimpong had missed out on the Dutch squad for this summer’s World Cup was shocking in one way. The versatile wing-back would have been considered a shoo-in this time last year. Unfortunately, it is easy to understand why Ronald Koeman now feels he can do without a player who had a terrible first season at Liverpool.
Frimpong started just 23 games in all competitions as he struggled for form and fitness for most of a campaign that produced just two assists and two goals – a shocking return for a player who proved so prolific in both areas for Bayer Leverkusen.
The main problem with the 25-year-old is that nobody is sure if he is good enough defensively to play at right-back. Frimpong has developed incredible pace, but his positioning and decision-making are questionable at best.
Of course, Frimpong’s struggles wouldn’t be such a problem for Liverpool if Conor Bradley was able to play twice a week – but that now looks like a pipe dream after another campaign that has been curtailed by injury.
In that context, Iraola has a big decision to make at right back. If he doesn’t feel he can rely on either Frimpong or Bradley to stay fit, a summer signing is vital, with Liverpool still no closer to filling the huge void left by Trent Alexander-Arnold.
