Liverpool's Pre-Season Challenges Under Andoni Iraola
Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool era has barely begun, but the problems waiting on his desk are already clear enough. The players are drifting back in waves to the AXA Training Centre, the main group not fully assembled until July 14, before a flight to the United States on July 20.
For a club still smarting from a flat, underwhelming campaign, this pre-season is not a warm-up. It’s a reset. And three issues, in particular, demand early answers.
1. Fast‑track Jacquet
Jeremy Jacquet turns 21 on Monday. He arrives as a £60m signing, off the back of shoulder surgery that cut short his season in February. New league. New country. New expectations. It would be easy for apprehension to creep in.
Liverpool’s hierarchy have gambled big that it won’t.
With Giovanni Leoni still working back from the ACL injury he suffered 10 months ago, Jacquet is likely to spend much of the summer alongside Joe Gomez at centre-back. These are only pre-season games, technically about fitness and rhythm, but for Jacquet they are something else entirely: a public audition.
His unveiling last week showed a young defender desperate to impress. The club see him as the long-term partner for Virgil van Dijk. Iraola’s job is to make that more than a theory by the time the Premier League starts.
There is a useful precedent. At Bournemouth, Iraola took Dean Huijsen, sharpened his game and helped turn him into a Spain international and, ultimately, a £60m defender for Real Madrid. That track record is part of why Liverpool chose him. He improves young centre-backs with high ceilings.
Now he has another one.
On this tour, Jacquet will be the only new signing in the group. Every touch, every duel, every mistake will be scrutinised, even with the caveat that these matches don’t carry points. Liverpool need him to grow quickly into the role of Van Dijk’s heir apparent. Iraola needs him ready not just to survive the Premier League, but to shape it from the back.
This is the first big project of the new regime. There won’t be much patience if it stalls.
2. Curtis Jones: stay, go, or restart?
Curtis Jones returns from his holiday in Mallorca next week with his future no clearer than when he left.
Liverpool have already turned away two approaches from Inter. The second bid, made last month, fell short of £22m. The club would only even think about doing business at around £35m. That gap in valuation is wide enough to halt talks before they really start, and some at Anfield wonder if this saga has already run its course.
For now, Jones remains in limbo.
On one hand, the door to a prominent role is open. Alexis Mac Allister is still at the World Cup with Argentina. Ryan Gravenberch is on his break. A midfield spot is there to be claimed in pre-season, and Iraola’s ideas might yet light a spark in a player who grew up dreaming of dominating this pitch in red.
On the other, the outside world has noticed the hesitation. Inter and Aston Villa have both sensed that a lack of game time could tempt Jones away from his boyhood club. He does not want to walk away lightly. But careers are short, and the clock does not stop for sentiment.
This is where Iraola’s man-management comes in. Before any tactical plans, he needs clarity. Is Jones ready for a fresh start under a new coach at Liverpool, or is he already leaning towards a move? Those conversations, behind closed doors in Kirkby, will shape more than just one player’s summer.
If Jones buys into Iraola’s vision and performs on the tour, the shirt is there for him, at least while Mac Allister is away. If he wavers, Liverpool may decide that £35m and a clean break suit everyone.
The decision cannot drift. Not in a summer when so much is being rebuilt.
3. Ngumoha and the right‑wing riddle
Liverpool’s recruitment drive this summer has pointed firmly to one side of the pitch. They have triggered the £34.5m release clause in Victor Munoz’s Osasuna contract and told RB Leipzig they would be prepared to go as high as £86m for Yan Diomande. Both are at their best off the left. Interest in Bradley Barcola at Paris Saint-Germain follows the same pattern.
Yet Liverpool’s looming problem lies on the opposite flank.
At some stage, they must find the successor to Mohamed Salah on the right of the front three. Spending huge money on left-sided forwards and then asking them to reinvent themselves on the other wing is a risk that does not sit comfortably with everyone inside the club.
So another idea has surfaced: Rio Ngumoha, as a right-sided attacker.
Ngumoha’s rise over the past year has been explosive. Last summer he forced his way into the first-team picture. In late August, just days before his 17th birthday, he scored his first Premier League goal in that wild 3-2 win at Newcastle United. By the end of the season he was not just a Liverpool starter but an England international, missing out on the World Cup only by the narrowest of margins after a player-of-the-match display against New Zealand in the United States.
Those performances have changed his status. Liverpool want to reward his progress with a new contract once he turns 18 in late August. Bayern Munich are watching, but Liverpool have no intention of letting him go.
The key question now is where he plays.
Ngumoha’s England cameo in America came on the right. In an era obsessed with inverted wingers cutting in on their stronger foot, Liverpool are actively debating something more traditional for him: hugging the touchline, beating full-backs on the outside, and whipping dangerous crosses into the box.
It is not just a stylistic discussion. Long term, Liverpool need to unlock £125m striker Alexander Isak and create more high-quality chances for him. A natural right-sided winger, stretching the pitch and supplying early, sharp deliveries, could be central to that plan.
Given Ngumoha’s limited senior experience compared with targets like Barcola, Iraola might see him as malleable enough to reshape. He is still at the very start of his career, despite the rapid ascent. This summer’s tour will offer the first clues: does Iraola keep him on the left, where he has thrived, or start the experiment on the right?
Liverpool did not just hire Iraola for his defensive work. His reputation for improving young forwards at Bournemouth – Eli Junior Kroupi, Rayan, Antoine Semenyo – was a major selling point. Ngumoha now becomes the most exciting test of that reputation.
If Iraola gets this right, Liverpool might not need to spend nine figures finding Salah’s successor. They might already have him, just waiting to be nudged a few yards across the pitch.
