Andoni Iraola's Tactical Blueprint for Liverpool
Andoni Iraola did not arrive at Liverpool alone. He walked into Anfield with a blueprint, a trusted inner circle and a clear understanding of where last season’s champions must sharpen their edge: set pieces.
The Spaniard has transplanted the core of his Bournemouth staff to Merseyside since replacing Arne Slot last month. Tommy Elphick, a boyhood Liverpool supporter, and Shaun Cooper have come in as first-team coaches. Pablo de la Torre, Iraola’s long-time ally, has been installed as assistant coach. Alejandro Rosalen, fresh from five years at Napoli, now oversees the goalkeepers.
It is not a cosmetic reshuffle. It is the foundation of how Iraola intends to work.
“For me, it was important they came with me,” he said, as he prepared for his first Liverpool outing on Saturday, a pre-season friendly against Sunderland in Nashville.
De la Torre, in particular, is far more than the job title suggests. The pair first worked together at AEK Larnaca, then again at Rayo Vallecano, and have been virtually inseparable on the touchline since.
“Pablo is a physical coach but has been with me almost all the years I have been coaching,” Iraola explained. “So, for me, he is much more than a physical coach really. He is an assistant and we know each other very well.”
That familiarity matters now. Iraola is stepping into a dressing room that has just come off a title-winning campaign under Slot, yet finished with a glaring weakness: Liverpool conceded 23 goals from set pieces in the league. Only Bournemouth (26), Crystal Palace (25) and Leeds (24) were worse. For a team with Liverpool’s ambitions, that number is a siren.
The new manager knows it. So do the men around him.
At Bournemouth, Iraola’s carefully laid plans were almost derailed before he started. His assistant at Rayo, Iñigo Pérez, was denied a work permit when they tried to reunite on the south coast. The disruption could have unsettled a coach still learning the Premier League. Instead, it opened a door.
“I was very lucky with Tommy and Shaun when I arrived at Bournemouth,” Iraola said. Pérez eventually landed on his feet and is now coaching Villarreal – “Maybe we play him in the Champions League,” Iraola quipped – but in the meantime, Elphick and Cooper became indispensable.
“But when I had Tommy and Shaun there, we did not feel the need to bring in another assistant,” he continued. “They were very prepared, they were very helpful for me in terms of understanding the English culture, the mentality of the players, what they were used to, what they like in training, even the small details that maybe in Spain are different.”
Those details now transfer to Liverpool. Elphick’s career has taken him through Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Brighton and Huddersfield. That path, those dressing rooms, give him a connection to players Iraola simply cannot replicate overnight.
“Also the experience Tommy has at Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Brighton, Huddersfield; they can be in a closer position to the players. They can feel more identified. I am a little bit older. Some of the players maybe didn’t know I was a player.”
So the structure is clear. The voices are defined. And within that, set pieces have become a specialist project.
“They are very good coaches,” Iraola said of his staff. “We kind of understand the game similarly and they have different roles in the coaching staff, they help with set pieces also. That’s the reason I continued with them.”
The division of labour is sharp. Elphick takes charge of defensive set plays, the area where Liverpool’s numbers sagged last season. Cooper focuses on the attacking routines, the creative patterns that can tilt tight games. Alongside them, Lewis Mahoney, the club’s set-piece analyst, remains a key figure after impressing during the second half of last season.
“Tommy does defensive set plays, Shaun does more offensive, more creative ones. But also we are working very well here with the set-piece analyst [Lewis Mahoney], who was very good in the second half of last season. He is already with the club, so they are working on some stuff.”
This is how Iraola works: clearly defined roles, trusted lieutenants, and a specific problem to solve. The numbers from last year leave no room for ambiguity. Liverpool won the title under Slot, but they did so while leaking from dead balls at a rate that will not be forgiven twice.
Nashville will offer only a glimpse, a pre-season rehearsal in an American stadium far from the intensity of a Premier League afternoon. But as Iraola’s staff begin to imprint their ideas on the training ground, one question will hang over Liverpool’s new era: can this tight-knit group turn the team’s softest spot into a weapon?
