6 Problems New Liverpool Manager Andoni Iraola Must Solve

Liverpool have a new manager. Just over a year after Arne Slot led the Reds to a record-equalling 20th English championship, the Dutchman has been replaced in the dugout by Andoni Iraola. The change of coach has already lifted spirits around Anfield after a disastrous Premier League title defense that featured 12 defeats, while Liverpool were also hammered at home by Crystal Palace in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup, humiliated by Manchester City in the FA Cup quarter-finals and swept aside by Paris Saint-Germain in the last eight of the Champions League. Slot certainly wasn’t solely responsible for the Reds’ remarkable regression, and he probably would have been forgiven a trophy-less campaign had his side played with any great intensity. However, Liverpool looked mentally and physically frail for the majority of the season, so it was not in the least bit surprising that the supporters grew weary of watching their side struggle to score goals and keep clean sheets on a weekly basis. Sporting director Richard Hughes has, thus, tasked Iraola with once again fixing a broken team, having previously hired him at Bournemouth back in 2023. The Basque did a remarkable job with very little money to spend at the Vitality Stadium and, after losing nearly his entire defense last summer, somehow led the Cherries to a historic sixth-placed finish in last season’s Premier League. The fact that he pulled off that remarkable feat by playing ‘front-foot football’ is the main reason why Hughes & Co. believe Iraola is the ideal man to turn things around at Anfield. However, it’s not going to be easy for Iraola. As the Spaniard sits down to start work in his new role, he has an awful lot of problems to address before the new season begins in August. Here, GOAL looks at the most pressing items in Iraola’s in-tray: Get Isak Firing Usually, the last thing a manager wants is to see an important player heading off to a major international tournament. However, Slot argued shortly before he was sacked that Alexander Isak’s participation in the World Cup might actually be a good thing for Liverpool. After all, it’s not as if the Sweden international was at the risk of burnout. He only started 13 times during his first, injury-plagued campaign on Merseyside. So, one could easily understand why Slot thought it would be “very helpful” for Isak to play “a lot of games” at the World Cup. Of course, the obvious risk is that he breaks down again in North America, but Isak unquestionably needs minutes more than any other player in the Liverpool squad. Indeed, it would be a massive boost for Iraola if the British-record buy were to come out of the tournament unscathed and with his confidence restored after stringing together some starts and maybe even scoring a couple of goals. The early signs are encouraging, too, with Isak having come off the bench to score a stunner in Sweden’s friendly against Norway on Monday. Given Iraola joined Bournemouth three years ago, he’s obviously familiar with the Newcastle version of Isak – and that’s the version Liverpool need next season. Another four-goal campaign is utterly unthinkable for a £125 million player, so while the new coach will want Isak back for as much of pre-season as possible to impress upon him the importance of pressing, the World Cup could prove key to helping him get the very best 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 a whole lot easier for Iraola to get Isak firing if he can figure out how to unlock Florian Wirtz’s enormous potential. For a split-second midway through the 2025-26 campaign, it actually felt like everything was going to click into place for Liverpool. Isak confidently converting a lovely little through-ball from Wirtz in the 2-1 win at Tottenham on December 20 provided the long-suffering supporters with a glimpse of a brighter future. It proved nothing more than a glimpse, though, because Isak was left with a broken leg after being wiped out by Micky van de Ven immediately after scoring and wouldn’t feature again in the Premier League for a further four months. Of course, Wirtz continued to show flashes of his undoubted genius — particularly while working in tandem with Hugo Ekitike before the Frenchman’s devastating, year-ending injury. However, while fate conspired against the Germany international on more than a couple of occasions, there’s no denying that Wirtz went missing far too many times, and particularly in big games. The hope is, though, that the shift in style we’re now set to see under Iraola will benefit the £100m signing from Bayer Leverkusen, who should take up the No.10 role in the coach’s preferred 4-2-3-1 formation. Wirtz, though, is also under pressure to prove that 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 hard-running Dominik Szoboszlai in front of Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister. Getting the make-up of the midfield right really is of the utmost importance to Iraola, because the Reds were repeatedly overrun last season, with Gravenberch providing more attacking threat but less defensive cover, and Mac Allister appearing utterly exhausted. Do not be surprised, then, if Iraola asks his new employers for the specialist No.6 Liverpool have lacked for so long to lighten the load on Gravenberch, restore some badly needed balance to the side and allow Wirtz to go and do what he does best: create. Develop Salah’s Successor Wirtz obviously also needs more quality options ahead of him, particularly as there’s now a glaring hole on Liverpool’s right wing. Despite giddy talk of a rapid return for Mohamed Salah following Slot’s sacking, the Egyptian King won’t be coming back 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 both scored and assisted more goals than any other Liverpool player in Premier League history. Of course, the club could – and indeed should – have pre-empted this problem by bringing in Antoine Semenyo last summer. Instead, he was allowed to join rivals Manchester City for a bargain £64m during the winter transfer window – and Liverpool are now going to have to pay an awful lot more than that if they’re to land their top target, Yan Diomande. Still, the work done by Iraola at Bournemouth not only with Semenyo but also Rayan suggests that no matter which winger the Reds sign to replace Salah, he’s capable of taking their game to a whole other level. Help Jacquet Settle ASAP Whether Liverpool will come to regret refusing to meet Ibrahima Konate’s wage demands is unclear at this stage. What we do already know, though, is that the Reds are now light on experience in the center of defense. Veteran captain Virgil van Dijk may have at least one more big season in him, but while Joe Gomez may stick around for another year despite more talk of a move away from Merseyside, the versatile England international simply can’t be counted on to stay fit. Given nobody can be sure how long it will take teenager Giovanni Leoni to get back up to full speed after his ACL injury, the onus is very much on new arrival Jeremy Jacquet to hit the ground running. The problem, of course, is that the 20-year-old spent a significant spell on the sidelines himself last season. Jacquet suffered a serious shoulder injury in Rennes’ Ligue 1 clash with Lens on February 7 – less than a week after his £60m summer switch to Liverpool was confirmed. However, the word is that Jacquet has made a full recovery and should be fully fit for the start of pre-season, which is just as well, really, 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. Still, on the plus side, the former Bournemouth boss didn’t take 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 an increasingly injury-prone Alisson Becker was nearing the end of his Anfield career, so they put a succession plan in place in the summer of 2024 by agreeing a deal with Valencia for Giorgi Mamardashvili that would see the Georgian move to Merseyside a year later. As a consequence, the Reds decided to allow their understandably annoyed No.2, Caoimhin Kelleher, to join Brentford for an initial £12.5m. Unfortunately for forward-thinking Liverpool, both of those deals now look dreadfully ill-advised. While Kelleher rather predictably played a pivotal role in Keith Andrews’ Brentford surprisingly finishing ninth in last season’s Premier League, Mamardashvili didn’t look at all comfortable during the majority of his first 20 appearances for the Reds. Granted, the 25-year-old wasn’t helped at all by the poor excuse for a defense placed in front of him, but there was a constant air of nervousness about him, particularly with the ball at his feet. Therefore, it’s not in the least bit surprising that Liverpool are reportedly no longer willing to allow Alisson to join Juventus. The Brazilian is still said to be intent on moving to Turin, but Iraola should do whatever he can to convince Alisson to stay for one more year at Anfield. He may not be capable of playing 50 games a season anymore, but it’s clear that Liverpool need more time to find a more suitable successor than Mamardashvili. Sort The Problem Position The news that Jeremie Frimpong had missed out on the Netherlands squad for this summer’s World Cup was shocking in one sense. The versatile wing-back would have been considered a shoo-in this time last year. However, it’s sadly 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 for both form and fitness for almost the entirety of a campaign that yielded just two assists and two goals — a shocking return for a player who proved so prolific in both areas for Bayer Leverkusen. The main issue with the 25-year-old is that nobody’s sure if he’s good enough defensively to play at right-back. Frimpong has got 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 were capable of playing twice a week – but that’s now looking like a pipe dream after another campaign curtailed by injury. In that context, Iraola has a major decision to make at right-back. If he doesn’t feel he can trust either 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.