Liverpool's Rebuilding Challenge Under Andoni Iraola
Andoni Iraola is starting his Liverpool reign with a blunt message: this squad is not ready yet.
The Premier League campaign opens at Newcastle United on Sunday, but while the season is here, Liverpool’s squad still feels half-built. The manager has been clear for weeks where he sees the biggest problem – out wide.
Wings exposed as Liverpool rebuild
Jeremy Jacquet, Victor Munoz and Ronald Araujo have arrived, yet the holes left by Mohamed Salah, Andy Robertson and Ibrahima Konate still gape. The names coming in are outweighed, in profile and in volume, by the stars who have gone out.
Asked about the timing of Liverpool’s transfer work, Iraola didn’t bother with diplomacy.
“As a manager, it's an easy one for me, I wanted the players from the first day on July 13,” he said. “I wanted everyone here, all the positions doubled with top-level players. But you understand how the competition works.”
The reality is different. The window is still open, the league has begun, and Liverpool’s wide options are thin.
“The market is open when you start the competition so we have to adapt as coaches to this situation,” he added. “There are certain situations that for me are clear, especially on the wing because we don't have enough players specifically to play in those positions.
“In other positions we have to be open-minded in the market to see situations that honestly can improve our team.”
That’s the balance he is trying to strike: publicly calm, privately urgent.
Chaos of the final 10 days
The final stretch of the window is where things usually get frantic. Iraola wants no part of the noise.
Liverpool are pushing for two wide attackers. They are pursuing Paris Saint-Germain’s Bradley Barcola and have already seen a £50 million bid for Brighton winger Yankuba Minteh rejected. The rumours swirl, the names pile up, but the coach is trying to keep his players’ heads clear.
“I hate these 10 days that we have because there is a lot of uncertainty, not just in Liverpool but everywhere,” he admitted. “But we have to not spend too much time thinking about these things.”
Pressed on Barcola and Minteh specifically, the former Bournemouth boss shut it down, wary of any suggestion of tapping up. He knows how quickly transfer talk can become a distraction – or a problem.
So while the recruitment team works in the background, Iraola’s job is to project stability with what he has.
Curtis Jones exits as era shifts
That sense of transition runs right through Anfield. Curtis Jones, an academy product who grew up with the club, is on the brink of leaving.
The midfielder is close to a £30 million move to Serie A champions Inter. It is a significant sale, both financially and emotionally, and one Iraola has effectively signed off on.
“I talked to him in the first or second training day,” the manager revealed. “I value him a lot as a player, he loves this club, but I understood probably what the outcome would be in the end. He was coming from some years in the same position.”
Jones wants a new challenge. Liverpool want to reshape. The move reflects both.
New hierarchy behind Van Dijk
Leadership has had to be rebuilt as well. With Robertson joining Tottenham earlier in the summer, Liverpool’s vice-captaincy was left vacant. Iraola has chosen to spread the responsibility.
Virgil van Dijk remains captain, but the manager has installed a new leadership group around him: Alisson Becker, Dominik Szoboszlai and Joe Gomez.
There is a twist, though. The armband itself will not sit on Alisson’s sleeve.
“With the new rule I think there is a big limitation if a 'keeper wears the armband,” Iraola explained. “Because if something happens in the opposition box the referee has to explain to the captains what's happening, all the decisions.
“I had one season with Neto in Bournemouth and then you have to start every game to say a different player that can act as a captain, and this is not viable.”
He still wanted his goalkeeper to feel his importance.
“I wanted Alisson to feel like we value him,” Iraola said. “I've had enough time and we will have more time to know each other, but I had to explain the decision about the armband to him. Unfortunately, they are putting the rules in a way that there is a lot of disadvantages to having a keeper as a captain.”
So Liverpool head to Newcastle with a new manager, a reshaped leadership core, a key academy graduate on his way out, and glaring gaps out wide.
The season starts now. The real question is how much of this team will look the same when the window finally slams shut.
