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Liverpool have a new manager. Just over a year after Arne Slot led the Reds to a record 20th English league title, the Dutchman was replaced in the dugout by Andoni Iraola. The managerial change has already lifted morale around Anfield after a disastrous Premier League title defense that ended in 12 defeats, while Liverpool were also hammered at home by Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup fourth round, humiliated by Manchester City in the FA Cup quarter-finals and swept aside by Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League last 16.
Slot is certainly not solely responsible for the Reds’ remarkable decline, and he would probably have been forgiven for a trophyless campaign if his team had played with great intensity. However, Liverpool looked mentally and physically fragile for most of the season, so it was not at all surprising that fans grew tired of seeing their team struggle to score goals and keep clean sheets every week.
Sporting director Richard Hughes therefore tasked Iraola with once again repairing a broken team, having hired him from Bournemouth 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, led the Cherries to a historic sixth place in the Premier League last season. The fact that he achieved this remarkable feat while playing “top class football” is the main reason why Hughes & Co. believe Iraola is the right man to turn things around at Anfield.
However, it’s not going to be easy for Iraola. As the Spaniard sits down to start working in his new role, he has an awful lot of issues to sort out before the new season begins in August. Here, AIM looks at the most urgent items in Iraola’s bin:
Make Isak shoot
Usually the last thing a manager wants is to see an important player travel to a major international tournament. However, Slot argued shortly before his sacking that Alexander Isak’s participation in the World Cup could actually be a good thing for Liverpool.
After all, it’s not like the Sweden international is in danger of burning out. He started just 13 times during his injury-plagued debut campaign on Merseyside. It’s easy to understand why Slot thought it would be “very useful” for Isak to play “a lot of matches” at the World Cup.
Of course, the obvious risk is that he flops again in North America, but Isak undoubtedly needs more minutes than any other player in Liverpool’s squad.
Indeed, it would be a huge boost for Iraola if the British record buy emerged from the tournament unscathed and with his confidence restored after stringing together a few starts and perhaps even scoring a few goals. The early signs are also encouraging, with Isak coming off the bench to score a superb goal in Sweden’s friendly against Norway on Monday.
Given Iraola joined Bournemouth three years ago, he obviously knows 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 pre-season as possible to impress upon him the importance of pressing, the World Cup could prove vital in helping him get the most 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 enormous potential.
For a split second in the middle of the 2025-26 campaign, it looked like everything was going to fall into place for Liverpool. Isak confidently converting a lovely little through ball from Wirtz in the 2-1 win at Tottenham on December 20 gave long-suffering supporters a glimpse of a brighter future.
It only proved to be a glimpse, as Isak was left with a broken leg after being wiped out by Micky van de Ven immediately after scoring and would not feature in the Premier League for another four months.
Of course, Wirtz continued to show flashes of his undoubted genius – particularly when working in tandem with Hugo Ekitike before the Frenchman’s devastating year-ending injury. However, even though fate has conspired against the German international on several occasions, it is clear that Wirtz has disappeared far too often, and especially during big matches.
The hope is, however, that the change in style we will now see under Iraola will benefit the £100million signing from Bayer Leverkusen, who is expected to take on the No.10 role in the manager’s favored 4-2-3-1 formation.
Wirtz, however, is also under pressure to prove he can cope with the intensity and physicality of the Premier League – and thus dismiss claims that Liverpool would be better served by deploying the tough Dominik Szoboszlai ahead of Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister.
Getting the midfield dialed in really is of the utmost importance to Iraola, as the Reds were overwhelmed on several occasions 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 that Liverpool have been missing for so long to lighten Gravenberch’s load, restore the much-needed balance and allow Wirtz to go and do what he does best: create.
Developing Salah’s successor
Wirtz obviously also needs more quality options in front of him, especially as there is now a glaring hole on Liverpool’s right wing.
Despite rumors of a quick return for Mohamed Salah following Slot’s dismissal, the Egyptian king will not return to Anfield anytime soon and the search for a worthy heir to the throne has already begun.
It’s obviously a thankless task, given we’re talking about an inside forward who has scored and assisted more goals than any other Liverpool player in Premier League history.
Of course, the club could – and should – have anticipated this problem by bringing in Antoine Semenyo last summer. Instead, he was allowed to join rivals Manchester City for a bargain £64 million during the winter transfer window – and Liverpool will now have to pay a lot more than that if they are to land their main 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 new level.
Help Jacquet settle in as soon as possible
It is not yet known whether Liverpool will regret refusing to meet Ibrahima Konaté’s salary demands. What we already know, however, is that the Reds now lack experience in central defense.
Veteran captain Virgil van Dijk may still have at least one big season left in him, but even if Joe Gomez can stay for another year despite talk of a move away from Merseyside, the versatile England international simply cannot be counted on to stay fit.
With no one knowing how long it will take teenager Giovanni Leoni to get back to full speed after his ACL injury, the onus is on new arrival Jeremy Jacquet to get to work.
The problem, of course, is that the 20-year-old himself spent a significant period on the sidelines last season. Jacquet suffered a serious shoulder injury during Rennes’ Ligue 1 clash with Lens on February 7 – less than a week after his £60million summer move to Liverpool was confirmed.
However, Jacquet is said to have made a full recovery and should be fully fit for the start of pre-season, which is just as well, 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.
Yet on the plus side, it didn’t take the former Bournemouth boss that 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 the increasingly injury-prone Alisson Becker was nearing the end of his career at Anfield, so they put a succession plan in place in the summer of 2024 by striking a deal with Valencia for Giorgi Mamardashvili that would see the Georgian move to Merseyside a year later. As a result, the Reds have decided to allow their understandably annoyed No.2, Caoimhin Kelleher, to join Brentford for an initial fee of £12.5million.
Unfortunately for forward-thinking Liverpool, both deals now look woefully ill-advised. While Kelleher, rather predictably, played a pivotal role in Keith Andrews’ Brentford’s surprising success in finishing ninth in the Premier League last season, Mamardashvili did not look at all comfortable in the majority of his first 20 appearances for the Reds.
Certainly the 25-year-old wasn’t helped at all by the poor excuse of a defense placed in front of him, but there was a constant air of nervousness around him, especially with the ball at his feet.
Therefore, it is not at all surprising that Liverpool are no longer willing to allow Alisson to join Juventus. The Brazilian reportedly still intends to move to Turin, but Iraola should do everything in his power to convince Alisson to stay another year at Anfield. He may no longer be capable of playing 50 games a season, but it is clear that Liverpool need more time to find a more suitable successor than Mamardashvili.
Sort problem position
The news that Jérémie Frimpong was not in the Netherlands squad for the World Cup this summer was shocking in a way. The versatile winger would have been considered a must-have this time last year. However, it is unfortunately 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 with form and fitness for almost the entire duration of a campaign that yielded just two assists and two goals – a shocking return for a player who was so prolific in both areas for Bayer Leverkusen.
The 25-year-old’s main problem is that no one knows if he is good enough defensively to play at right back. Frimpong has 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 injury-shortened campaign.
In this context, Iraola has a major decision to make at right-back. If he doesn’t think he can trust Frimpong or Bradley to stay fit, a summer signing is essential, with Liverpool still no closer to filling the considerable void left by Trent Alexander-Arnold.
