Andoni Iraola’s team have shot up the table after a slow start but they are still not scoring enough goals

By WhoScored

Every Liverpool win this season seems to come with an asterisk. Yes, they beat Brentford, but Brentford had a man sent off. Yes they beat Villarreal, but they conceded three. On Sunday, against Brighton the asterisks finally ran out. Liverpool beat the Premier League’s top scorers 2-0, kept a clean sheet against a side that had scored 23 goals in their first seven games, and won a league match at home for the first time since April.

Liverpool have won their last five games – including knocking Chelsea out of the Carabao Cup at Anfield on penalties – and are fourth in the Premier League, but there is still the sense that nobody quite trusts what they are watching. Liverpool remain a work in progress, with questions about their ability to create enough chances and break down stubborn opponents. Arsenal’s visit to Anfield this weekend will give us an indication of how much they have progressed under Andoni Iraola.

• Chelsea manager making latest Anfield return

• Andoni Iraola upbeat before Carabao Cup tie

Teenager produced man-of-the-match performance against Villarreal and has learned from Salah, says Reds captain

The shot sailed wide of Peter Gulacsi’s top corner and into the Kop, affording Villarreal much-needed respite at 4-2, but for Andoni Iraola it was a standout moment in a scintillating Champions League display from Rio Ngumoha. To a coach that called for versatility from all of his wingers this summer, here was a significant step forward among many from the 18-year-old at Anfield.

There were questions over how Ngumoha would adapt to playing on the right even before Liverpool increased the likelihood by signing Bradley Barcola for £123m from Paris Saint-Germain. On his fifth start under Iraola on Tuesday, which his side ultimately won 4-3, Liverpool witnessed an answer: quickly, incisively and confidently. The teenager’s willingness to cut inside from the right and shoot from distance with the left foot captured Iraola’s imagination as much as the devastating run that created Alexis Mac Allister’s second goal of the game.

United manager Carrick rues missing out on ‘emotion in the moment’ while Iraola’s players are focusing on next game, not the fallout

The 23-year-old playmaker has been disappointing for Liverpool but has he really been that bad?

By Opta Analyst

When Florian Wirtz signed for Liverpool in the summer of 2025, there was only one logical assumption. The Premier League champions at the time had recruited one of the hottest young talents in world football – a key player in the Bayer Leverkusen team that had won the double in 2023-24 and a star in the Germany team. An exciting and productive young attacking midfielder being added to the best team in England? How could this not work?

Football has a habit of flipping the script, though. Last season was difficult for Liverpool for several reasons, and Wirtz, along with other new arrivals, struggled to make the impact expected of a player costing up to £116m. There were conversations among fans this summer about how long he and his fellow nine-figure signing Alexander Isak should be given before difficult questions needed be asked. The consensus was until Christmas.

Making big decisions and turning draws into wins is vital as head coach seeks to improve on a mixed start with Reds

Alisson made little attempt to sugarcoat Liverpool’s unbeaten start to the season under Andoni Iraola when analysing the draw against Fulham with the club’s in-house media. “Unbeaten with three draws is not something to celebrate too much with this shirt,” said a peeved Liverpool goalkeeper. “We take the clean sheet but we are not happy at all. We need to aim for big things.”

Big things are the target and big things are expected from a Liverpool side containing three £100m-plus forwards. But the learning curve under the new head coach is proving challenging. As it is for the new head coach, too. Big decisions appear unavoidable.

• Potential buys rejected for sporting or economic reasons

• Preference was ‘best players’ not specific right-winger

Andoni Iraola has defended Liverpool’s summer transfer strategy and said the club’s priority was to sign quality over quantity.

Liverpool had the highest net spend in the Premier League, with Bradley Barcola, signed for a potential £123m, added to a front line that includes the £125m Alexander Isak and £116m Florian Wirtz. Barcola could make his debut at Ipswich on Friday, despite not featuring for Paris Saint-Germain before his move on Monday.

• Fourth official appeared to struggle with electronic boards

• ‘I wanted to make those substitutions about three minutes before’

Andoni Iraola bemoaned a poor first-half display plus a broken electronic board for Liverpool’s disappointing 2-2 draw with Nottingham Forest in the first home game of his Anfield reign. Forest led twice, but were denied a third successive Premier League win at Liverpool by Víctor Muñoz’s emphatic 82nd-minute equaliser.

The visitors’ second goal, from a penalty converted by Morgan Gibbs-White, stemmed from a throw-in taken quickly by Liam Delap while Iraola was attempting to make a triple substitution.

• ‘I tell them they don’t need to give us 90 minutes’

• Head coach takes charge of first home game on Saturday

Andoni Iraola has said it is more important for Liverpool’s forwards to exhaust themselves than perform for 90 minutes as he prepares to make an “emotional” Premier League bow at Anfield.

The Liverpool head coach hopes his attacking options will be improved by the arrival of Bradley Barcola from Paris Saint-Germain and another winger before Tuesday’s deadline, with only Victor Muñoz added to his front line so far. The Basque coach has outlined the demands he will put on his forwards as they adapt to a new era at Liverpool.

• Head coach frustrated by ‘tired’ performance

• Monaco come from two down to win 3-2 at Anfield

Andoni Iraola told his Liverpool team they have work to do after ­squandering a 2-0 lead against Monaco to lose a second successive pre-season friendly.

The former Bournemouth coach last managed a game at Anfield almost exactly a year ago in the memorable opener to the 2025-26 Premier League season, a game the Cherries were unfortunate to lose 4-2. Now on his debut in the home dugout, Iraola saw his team produce a similarly open display and lose again. It became clear Liverpool’s longstanding defensive frailties are still to be eliminated.

• Midfielder adapting to life under new manager

• Reds need ‘something special’ without further additions

Dominik Szoboszlai believes last season’s frustration can push Liverpool to challenge for the title again but admits the squad must produce “something special” if no reinforcements arrive before the transfer deadline.

The Liverpool midfielder upped his already impressive level last season, being named the club’s player of the year, but collectively the team went into reverse with Arne Slot losing his job as a consequence. The poor title defence from a team that won the Premier League comfortably in Slot’s debut season should, Szoboszlai insists, prompt a reaction in Andoni Iraola’s debut campaign as Liverpool head coach.

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.