Is Andoni Iraola the right head coach for Liverpool? We asked eight Athletic writers
Liverpool have a new head coach.
Andoni Iraola is the man ensconced at Anfield and he is facing a daunting task. The 43-year-old Spaniard not only has to adjust to the demands of one of world football’s most demanding clubs, having spent his coaching career well away from the spotlight at Bournemouth, Rayo Vallecano and Larnaca, but also has to revive a squad that looked broken at the end of last season under Arne Slot.
The appointment is undeniably a gamble — but will it work? We asked a range of Athletic experts for their verdict.
James Pearce
I’m cautiously optimistic that Iraola will be a success at Anfield.
His body of work at Bournemouth over the last three years is mightily impressive. His front-foot, aggressive brand of attacking football is exactly what Liverpool supporters want to see after their team lost its identity under Slot.
Iraola’s arrival will provide a much-needed injection of positivity and fresh ideas after all the gloom of 2025-26, but his appointment does represent a gamble.
He hasn’t previously managed a club of Liverpool’s stature and the step up from Bournemouth is vast. It will be intriguing to see how he deals with greater pressure, scrutiny and expectation levels. The extent of the media commitments and how every word he utters is dissected by a huge global fanbase will also be a shock.
Andoni Iraola greets Liverpool midfielder Ryan Gravenberch (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)
Given the absence of so many star names due to the World Cup and their late return to Merseyside in pre-season, I do have concerns about how quickly he can get his methods across. Time and patience will be needed.
He will also need to adapt to a more intense schedule than he’s been used to — Bournemouth played 40 games in all competitions in 2025-26 compared to Liverpool’s 57. Opportunities to spend a full week on the training field to prepare for games will be few and far between.
Iraola inherits a squad requiring some major surgery this summer and Liverpool have to give him the tools to do the job properly. That means filling glaring gaps with players well suited to his ideas.
Simon Hughes
Iraola’s appointment is a significant risk. He has done an excellent job at each of his two previous clubs but his only trophy remains the Cypriot Super Cup eight years ago and his higher-energy style of football has not been tested by the rigours of three game weeks involving European competition, not least at a club with an expectation like Liverpool’s.
There is a lot for him to solve and Liverpool’s fanbase, increasing in size, is not as patient as it used to be. He inherits an unbalanced squad that was built unsuccessfully for a different style of football.
I suspect it will take time for Iraola to build what he wants and for that to materialise into positive results. I just hope supporters have the composure to tolerate whatever process follows.
Nick Miller
Liverpool’s squad is an expensive mess and looks like it needs a few additions this summer. The hierarchy are clearly pretty impatient. A manager who has done a good job at a smaller club, stepping up to somewhere bigger, can often be a tricky transition. It also sometimes rings alarm bells when the decision-makers bring in an old friend from a previous life.
All of which points to this not being a great move for anyone involved. But for a team at a tricky point in their evolution, appointing someone like Iraola is a sensible decision because even if results take a while to look like everyone wants, it will be clear what he’s trying to do. Fans, players, executives, whole football clubs are much more likely to have a bit of patience, retain a bit of faith, if they can see the theory, can recognise a path towards success.
Reaching a European final in his first season clearly helped, but that’s how Jurgen Klopp retained popularity despite some sticky results early in his tenure: the football was exciting, and people broadly knew what he was trying to do. Iraola will need some time and maybe some suitable signings to make things work, but if he can get his team looking vaguely like Bournemouth, he’ll be afforded the time to do it.
Carl Anka
Mohamed Salah didn’t spend much time working under Jose Mourinho, but he picked up the manager’s flair for communication.
“I want to see Liverpool go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear and back to being a team that wins trophies,” Salah posted on social media following Liverpool’s defeat to Aston Villa in mid-May.
Salah even went as far as to describe heavy metal as an “identity that needs to be recovered and kept for good”, and while he may be departing Liverpool this summer, the club appears to have heard his message. There are very few managers on the market who are better than Iraola at shaping a team into a high-pressure collective.
Put simply: as a Manchester United fan, I am more concerned by a Liverpool team led by Iraola than I was by one that continued to be managed by Arne Slot.
Amelie Claydon
Iraola is the most intriguing candidate available, having repeatedly demonstrated an ability to build and improve teams at Rayo Vallecano and Bournemouth.
While Liverpool have spent heavily in recent years, with a record investment of £450million a year ago, Iraola made his name by developing his squad — surely a factor in his arrival.
He transformed a side tipped by many to struggle at the start of 2025-26 into Europa League qualifiers, securing European football for the first time in their history and finishing just three points behind Liverpool.
Iraola nurtured Milos Kerkez into one of the Premier League’s most sought-after left-backs when he swapped the south coast for Anfield last summer for £40m and Dean Huijsen emerged as one of Europe’s brightest young defenders before earning a move to Real Madrid.
Andoni Iraola had a close bond with Milos Kerkez (George Wood/Getty Images)
Antoine Semenyo became one of the best forwards in the world game thanks to Iraola and moved to Manchester City in January for £64m.
Iraola’s football has won admirers for its directness and intensity — that worked a treat for Klopp at Anfield and he appears ready for this role.
Dermot Corrigan
Iraola is clearly one of the best young coaches around at the moment, and his tremendous work at Rayo Vallecano and Bournemouth has earned an opportunity at one of Europe’s top clubs.
There is also a clear stylistic fit at Liverpool — with his super-intense and high-energy way of playing displaying clear similarities to Jurgen Klopp’s time at Anfield.
Key to Iraola’s success so far has been convincing players to work super hard for the collective, and trust that following their coach’s instructions will work out well for them individually.
The next question is whether such methods can work at the very elite level. A potential concern is how fellow Basques Unai Emery and Xabi Alonso had great success at clubs like Aston Villa and Bayer Leverkusen, but struggled to impose their complex ideas on dressing rooms at Arsenal and PSG (Emery) and Real Madrid (Alonso).
Iraola is a quietly confident character, but he is much less bombastic than Klopp or current PSG boss Luis Enrique. How he deals with this new challenge will be fascinating to watch.
George Edwards
In principle, the return to high-intensity and front-footed football is the redirection that Liverpool are craving. But in reality, do they have the players to fulfil the transition from Slot’s passive approach to the full throttle of Iraola?
The “heavy-metal” of Klopp was spearheaded by athletes. Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and a more willing Mohamed Salah led the press. Jordan Henderson and Georginio Wijnaldum’s relentless energy in midfield was complemented by Andy Robertson’s endurance. All of them are no longer Liverpool players.
The team Klopp assembled thrived in Slot’s first campaign, with more focus on possession and patience but that was replaced by stagnation last season, despite a summer spend of £450million, and cost Slot his job.
Iraola’s football presents the vigour and explosiveness that could provide the dynamism Liverpool’s support craves.
But he’ll need buy-in from the squad, and will have to generate success quicker than at Bournemouth, where he failed to win any of his first nine matches. One thing is for sure, it won’t be dull — Bournemouth, with the likes of Rayan and Alex Scott, were a joy to watch.
Caoimhe O’Neill
The more people I talk to who have worked with Iraola, the more convinced I am that he is going to be a hit at Anfield.
Liverpool fans don’t want to have to tell their team to “attack, attack, attack,” they want them to be on the front foot without having to ask. Under Iraola, if the players buy into his intense playing style and work extremely hard, this could be a very special chapter co-authored by a manager with a renowned love of reading.
It is no longer Klopp’s Liverpool, nor is it Slot’s. And I think Iraola’s Liverpool could perfectly bridge the gap between the two. Patience will be required, not just from players but fans as it might take time for Iraola to get Liverpool hunting in packs as well as they did under Klopp. But he will get them there.
Everybody who has worked with Iraola can’t speak highly enough of him — especially how nice and normal he is. I think he can be Liverpool’s new “normal one”.