Teenager Nyoni excelled in Andoni Iraola’s first pre-season tour, but the head coach desperately needs transfers

Andoni Iraola’s first pre-season tour as the Liverpool head coach produced wins over Sunderland in Nashville and Wrexham in New York before ending in a 4-2 defeat against Leeds in Chicago. The Guardian followed the tour throughout and here are a few things we learned.

Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta is perhaps best placed to fill the void but the coaching contenders are legion as another season looms

This used to be a land of giants. This used to be a land where big men fought. This used to be a land where Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger tussled, then José Mourinho joined the fray. This used to be a land where Jürgen Klopp made Pep Guardiola reconsider, and he changed his style and won anyway.

Not any more. Next season will be the first since the inaugural Premier League in 1992 not to feature any of the five big managerial beasts – not Ferguson, not Wenger, not Mourinho, not Klopp and not Guardiola.

New head coach needs to use the transfer market with defensive cover vital as injuries hamper US pre-season tour

“Faster, faster,” bellowed Andoni Iraola throughout the open training session Liverpool held in Chicago on Friday. His first pre-season tour as Liverpool head coach ends at the city’s famous Soldier Field Stadium on Sunday, with a friendly against Leeds, and “faster, faster” could apply to all aspects of the club’s preparations for a new Premier League campaign that begins in three weeks’ time.

Iraola was in his element as he immersed himself at the centre of every training drill that Liverpool performed at Chicago Fire’s Endeavor Health Performance Center, their base for the past two weeks in the US. “Faster, faster” was the new head coach’s instruction to his players as three teams of seven worked on their pressing games. He also shouted it when they walked over to a different pitch, recently vacated by Robert Lewandowski and his new Chicago Fire teammates, to work on offensive and defensive set-piece routines. Sprints were demanded following every rondo.

• Tommy Elphick and Shaun Cooper to work on set-pieces

• Iraola felt ‘very lucky’ to work with them at Bournemouth

Andoni Iraola has outlined the roles his backroom staff will play in trying to improve Liverpool’s set-piece record next season and admitted he was “very lucky” to inherit a talented coaching team at Bournemouth.

Iraola has brought several members of his Bournemouth backroom team with him to Liverpool since succeeding Arne Slot last month. Tommy Elphick, a boyhood Liverpool fan, and Shaun Cooper have joined as first-team coaches while Iraola’s long-time colleague Pablo de la Torre has arrived as assistant coach. Alejandro Rosalen has taken over as first-team goalkeeping coach after five years with Napoli.

Liverpool’s new head coach is settling into the pre-season tour in Chicago as he begins to reshape the Reds’ identity

Over coffee in Liverpool’s plush hotel in Chicago, Andoni Iraola presents his theory for the phenomenal success of Basque and Spanish coaches. It is a theory that will shape his entire approach to life as the Liverpool head coach and his attempts to bring the connection, the joy and the belief back to Anfield. It centres on the power of the collective.

The Champions League, the Premier League, the Europa League, the FA Cup, the League Cup, the European Championship and, as of Sunday, the World Cup: all currently in the hands of Basque and Spanish coaches, even if Pep Guardiola has since taken his leave from Manchester City. Next season, four men from the small Basque region of Gipuzkoa will manage four of the Premier League’s main contenders, Iraola included, alongside Mikel Arteta, Xabi Alonso and Unai Emery. There is, Iraola believes, a simple explanation for the rise of the guys from Gipuzkoa and for Spanish dominance across a global stage.

• Coach aims to strengthen with Ekitiké and Bradley out

• Mac Allister has been linked with move to Real Madrid

Andoni Iraola has said he is determined to keep Alexis Mac Allister and Alisson for his first season as Liverpool head coach and must strengthen a squad that will be without Hugo Ekitiké and Conor Bradley for several more months.

The dust had barely settled on Argentina’s World Cup final defeat by Spain when Mac Allister was linked with a move to Real Madrid. Iraola, in Chicago for the start of Liverpool’s pre-season tour of the US, accepted the midfielder is unlikely to be 100% ready for the Premier League opener at Newcastle due to a post-World Cup holiday. But he allayed doubts over Mac Allister’s long-term future at Liverpool, where he is under contract until 2028, by insisting the 27-year-old is part of next season’s plans.

Head coach has no illusions as to the scale of the task and wants to start by reconnecting the team and supporters

It was Andoni Iraola’s humility that made the biggest impression at his unveiling as Liverpool’s new head coach on Monday. Without fanfare or bombast the 44-year-old promised not to change as a result of landing the biggest job of his coaching career and also to connect with club and city alike. “The magic of being the Liverpool manager,” as he nicely described the opportunity. And without being asked directly, it was Iraola who insisted he must prove himself at Anfield.

For all the magic he produced during three years at Bournemouth, ending with European qualification for the first time in the club’s history and approaches from Crystal Palace and Milan, the Basque coach knows the move to Liverpool represents a considerable leap. It is a leap he feels ready to take.

New manager achieved much at Bournemouth with style reminiscent of Jürgen Klopp’s counterpress

There comes a point in most discussions when all the detail and complications fall away and the issue can be crystalised into a single straightforward question. For Liverpool that became: do they have more chance of challenging for the league title next season under Arne Slot or Andoni Iraola? Put like that, the answer was clear and so Slot was replaced.

That answer may seem counterintuitive. Slot won the Premier League last year and Iraola has never so much as managed a club in Europe. There will be those who see the decision, and the widespread consensus that it was the right thing to do, as evidence of football’s impatience. Perhaps it is. Perhaps Slot next season at Anfield, in less testing circumstances, could have regained the confidence of the dressing room and reinvigorated the side. But in management that is very rare.

• Spaniard replaces Arne Slot and signs two-year deal

• Iraola worked with Richard Hughes at Bournemouth

Andoni Iraola has been appointed the new head coach of Liverpool on a two-year contract. The 43-year-old’s arrival was confirmed just six days after the sacking of Arne Slot.

Liverpool moved quickly to replace Slot with the former Bournemouth head coach after identifying him as the ideal candidate for their preferred playing style and with Milan, Bayer Leverkusen and Crystal Palace all vying for the Basque’s services. Other coaches were considered, including Stuttgart’s Sebastian Hoeness and Pierre Sage of Lens, but Iraola was always Liverpool’s favoured option and the only one spoken to about the vacancy.

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It was only a matter of time before one of football’s big clubs placed their future in the hands of AI. Happily for Liverpool, they’ve plumped for a man with those initials rather than a rapidly growing technology that has been expertly designed to fill billionaires’ pockets. Yep, Andoni Iraola has verbally agreed to replace Arne Slot as Liverpool head coach and will go from walking on water at Bournemouth to hearing – maybe even singing, though he doesn’t look like a touchline lungs man – You’ll Never Walk Alone before every home game. The last time Liverpool appointed a Spanish manager, they were champions of Europe within a year. And Iraola will inherit a stronger squad than Rafa Benítez did in 2004 – albeit one that was put together by a manager whose style of play is very different to Iraola’s.

Tonda Eckert’s ‘For everything that has happened I want to apologise’ non-apology manages to completely miss the point. Things didn’t ‘happen’, Tonda, you and your staff ‘did things’ and you should be apologising for ‘everything that we did’. I am reminded of Ronald Reagan’s infamous ‘mistakes were made’. Of course, one should always make allowances for people with limited English skills, but what is Eckert’s excuse?” – Carl Zetie.

Interesting riff on the ‘You’re Tim Payne’ song. Personally, I wouldn’t classify Carly Simon as either ‘soft rock’ or album oriented rock (Football Daily letters passim). She’s more in the singer-songwriter genre for me. By the way, her sister Joanna was an acclaimed opera singer. Nessun Dorma, anyone?” – Mike Wilner.

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