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.

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.

• Italian champions willing to raise offer for midfielder

• Jones only has one year remaining on contract at Anfield

Inter have made another approach for Curtis Jones and are willing to raise their offer for the Liverpool midfielder to €35m (£30m). The Italian champions had a €25m bid for the 25-year-old rejected in June by Liverpool, who value their homegrown player at closer to €40m.

Intermediaries representing Inter have made fresh contact with Liverpool this week and outlined their willingness to go to €35m for a player who has only one year remaining on his contract at Anfield. Whether Liverpool accept that sum is doubtful, but a deal for Jones to leave his boyhood club does appear to be edging closer.

• 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.

• Almost 700,000 ticket registrations were analysed

• Club worked with local police economic crime team

More than £1.2m in assets have been seized and 432 lifetime bans issued as part of a clampdown by Liverpool FC and Merseyside police on ticket touting. In the first operation of its kind between a Premier League club and their local police authority, Liverpool’s investigations team worked with the force’s economic crime team to analyse almost 700,000 ticket registrations last season and to focus on the laundering of criminal proceeds from illicit ticket sales.

The joint investigation has led to £1.2m in assets related to organised ticket touts being detained with several cases taking place under the Proceeds of Crime Act. Two people have been convicted and another is due in court next month. The assets seized will be split between Merseyside police and the Home Office.

• 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.