Liverpool’s New Era: Andoni Iraola’s Intensity and Challenges
Liverpool’s new era under Andoni Iraola has begun with a jolt – and a warning.
For the second friendly in succession, his side raced into a two-goal lead, played some of the best football Anfield has seen this summer, and then collapsed. In Chicago it finished 4-2 to Leeds. Back on home turf against Monaco on Sunday, it was 3-2 to the visitors. Same pattern. Same questions.
Fast starts, brutal drop-offs
Iraola has never hidden what he wants. High pressing. Relentless running. Direct, vertical football that drags opponents into one-on-one duels all over the pitch and then punishes them. For half an hour against Monaco, Liverpool looked like they had been playing this way for months.
They moved the ball with pace. They went straight for the throat. The press snapped into place and Monaco struggled to breathe. Florian Wirtz floated between the lines, Alexander Isak looked razor sharp, and the crowd saw, for a brief spell, the outline of Iraola’s Liverpool.
The first half against Leeds told a similar story. For 45 minutes in Chicago, Liverpool were dynamic and aggressive, the most convincing they have looked in pre-season. Then the changes came. So did the reality check.
Leeds hit four goals in 25 minutes without reply. Monaco, given similar encouragement, struck three times in 44 minutes. Two games, two commanding positions squandered, two defeats that left their new manager far less diplomatic than he had been a week earlier.
Iraola’s blunt assessment
In Chicago on 2 August, Iraola had framed the 4-2 loss to Leeds as a learning experience, saying he had “learned a lot of things” about his side. At Anfield, two weeks out from the Premier League opener, his tone hardened.
He praised the first 30 minutes, then cut straight to the point: his players could not yet sustain the level he demands. “They don’t have much more, in terms of the levels required to play like this,” he admitted. The verdict was simple – there is “work to do”.
He is not wrong. Across four pre-season games, Liverpool have started like a storm and finished like a side running on fumes. The intensity Iraola wants has been visible early on, then has drained away as legs have tired and substitutions have piled up – nine changes against Leeds, 11 against Monaco.
Some mitigation exists. A chunk of the squad is still climbing back to full fitness after post-World Cup breaks. Others are not available at all. Conor Bradley, Hugo Ekitike and Giovanni Leoni are out for lengthy spells, limiting options and continuity.
Fitness, demands and a punishing regime
If there is a single word that underpins Iraola’s football, it is “intensity”. Those who watched his Bournemouth side last season saw a team that ranked first in the Premier League for direct attacks and third for high turnovers. The style is non-negotiable. The physical cost is obvious.
At Liverpool’s open training session in Chicago, his voice cut across the drills: “Quicker, quicker.” The tempo never dropped. One player told BBC Sport he felt sick after the first few sessions. Lose in training, and the punishment has been brutal in its simplicity – sprint to the other end of the pitch and back.
Milos Kerkez put it plainly: Iraola wants his players to “play one-on-one all over the pitch, to press high and to always be on the front foot”. That is a thrilling idea on paper. On grass, in August, with players still searching for sharpness, it is a demanding test.
To meet it, Iraola has brought trusted staff with him. Pablo de la Torre, formerly his fitness coach at Bournemouth, has joined the Liverpool set-up. His job is clear – drag this squad up to the physical level required to make Iraola’s football last more than 30 furious minutes.
Reinforcements and reality
Personnel will help. Uruguay defender Ronald Araujo is close to completing a season-long loan move from Barcelona, adding versatility at centre-back and right-back and, crucially, athleticism in the back line. It is the sort of signing that fits the model: aggressive, quick, comfortable defending big spaces.
Captain Virgil van Dijk did not hide the need for quality and depth. “Let’s see what the next couple of weeks are going to bring,” he said on Sunday. “Any quality we can add to the team will definitely be welcome so let’s see.” It was a captain’s diplomacy, but also an acknowledgement: this squad, as it stands, is being pushed to its limits.
Iraola knows the clock is ticking. At Bournemouth, it took him 10 league games to secure his first win in the 2023-24 season. The club backed his methods, and the football eventually justified their patience. Liverpool is a different world. A similar run at Anfield would ignite a storm.
He has, though, had less than a month with these players, and in some cases only a week. The structural ideas are already visible. The execution is not yet sustainable.
“I would like to say, no, on the first day, we are going to be perfect, everyone will be in place, but probably it is not going to be like this,” he said when asked how long it would take to fully see his style. “We will have to do this as quickly as possible.”
That is the tightrope now. The football he wants will entertain. The early bursts against Leeds and Monaco proved that. The question, with the Premier League looming, is stark: can Liverpool turn 30 blistering minutes into 90 before the real games start to count?
