Andoni Iraola's Liverpool Pre-Season: Key Decisions Ahead

Andoni Iraola’s first Liverpool pre-season is already moving in stages, but the real work starts next week. That is when the full squad gathers, the countdown to a US tour begins, and the new head coach starts putting his fingerprints on a club still smarting from a flat, underwhelming campaign.

The summer will be unforgiving. Iraola has three big calls to make before the plane leaves for America – a £60m centre-back to bed in, a homegrown midfielder whose future hangs in the balance, and a teenage winger who might just reshape Liverpool’s attack.

1. Fast‑track Jacquet

Jeremy Jacquet turns 21 on Monday. He arrives for pre-season as Liverpool’s only new signing on the tour, fresh from shoulder surgery and with a £60m price tag strapped to his back.

There’s nowhere to hide.

Liverpool’s hierarchy would not have pushed that deal through if they doubted his temperament. They know the scrutiny that comes with being the latest defensive investment at Anfield. They also know they need him quickly. With Giovanni Leoni still working his way back from an ACL injury suffered 10 months ago, Jacquet is in line to spend the summer alongside Joe Gomez at centre-back.

These are only friendlies, yes. But for Jacquet, they are auditions.

His unveiling last week showed a player itching to get going, and his performances across July will form one of the main storylines of Iraola’s first pre-season. The Frenchman has been signed not as a project for tomorrow but as a long-term partner for Virgil van Dijk. Getting him up to Premier League speed, tactically and physically, is one of the new manager’s first major tasks.

There is evidence Iraola knows how to handle this kind of challenge. At Bournemouth he drew top-level performances from Dean Huijsen, accelerating the defender’s rise from promising loanee to Spain international and then a £60m signing for Real Madrid. That experience matters now. Liverpool have again gambled big on a young defender with huge upside and raw edges.

Jacquet will be under the microscope in the United States, the lone new arrival in a squad that has otherwise been tweaked rather than transformed. Every duel, every mistake, every sign of authority will be weighed, even if the official line is that these games are about fitness.

For Iraola, the aim is simple: use the summer to turn a costly newcomer into a convincing partner-in-waiting for van Dijk. If that process stalls, Liverpool’s season starts with a question mark in the one area they can least afford uncertainty.

2. Curtis Jones: stay, go, or reset?

The other big question sits in midfield, and it comes with a local accent.

Curtis Jones’ future is unresolved. Liverpool have already knocked back two approaches from Inter, the second falling short of £22m. Inside Anfield, the sense is clear: if he goes, it will take something closer to £35m. The gap between what Liverpool want and what Inter are willing to pay is wide enough to stall talks, and some internally wonder if the deal has already run out of road.

That standstill hands Iraola an opportunity.

Jones returns from holiday in Mallorca next week, swapping the beach for the AXA Training Centre and a manager with a fresh plan. With Alexis Mac Allister still at the World Cup and Ryan Gravenberch on his break, a midfield spot opens up in the early weeks of pre-season. For a player who grew up in the city centre and came through the Academy, that is an invitation to reset his Liverpool story.

He does not want to leave his boyhood club in an ideal world. Yet interested sides such as Inter and Aston Villa have sensed that his stuttering game-time could nudge the door open. They see a technically gifted England international who may be ready for a new stage.

Liverpool see something else: a player who, if he grasps this pre-season, could walk into the Premier League XI while Mac Allister is away.

That is the tension Iraola must resolve. He needs to know whether Jones is ready to fight for a new role under a new coach, or whether his mind has drifted towards a fresh start elsewhere. Those conversations, held away from cameras and training-ground drone shots, will shape both the squad and the market.

If Jones impresses on tour, he becomes a solution at a time when Liverpool could do without creating another problem. If he hesitates, or if the lure of Italy or a different Premier League project grows stronger, the club may find themselves forced back to the negotiating table before the window closes.

For Iraola, clarity is as important as quality. He needs both from Jones, and he needs them quickly.

3. Ngumoha and the right‑wing rethink

On the flanks, Liverpool’s recruitment drive tells one story. Their academy tells another.

This summer’s search for wide players has already seen the club trigger a £34.5m release clause for Victor Munoz at Osasuna and signal to RB Leipzig that they would be willing to go to £86m for Yan Diomande. Interest in Bradley Barcola at Paris Saint-Germain underlines the theme: Liverpool are scouring the market for elite wide talent.

Yet there is a twist. Munoz, Diomande and Barcola are all most comfortable from the left.

At a time when Liverpool should be plotting life after Mohamed Salah on the right of the front three, the idea of spending huge fees on left-sided players and then asking them to adapt to a new role jars with some inside the club. That unease has pushed another idea forward: Rio Ngumoha as a right-sided attacker.

The teenager exploded into view last summer, jumped into the first-team picture and then marked the end of August by scoring his first Premier League goal in that frantic 3-2 win at Newcastle United, just days before his 17th birthday. By the end of the season he was not just a Liverpool starter but an England international, missing out on the World Cup only narrowly after a player-of-the-match display against New Zealand in the United States last month.

Those performances have stiffened Liverpool’s resolve. They want him tied down with a new contract once he turns 18 in late August. Bayern Munich have been watching, but the message from Anfield is blunt: they have no intention of letting him slip away.

The tactical question now is where he plays.

Ngumoha’s cameo for England in America came from the right. In an era when wide forwards often cut inside onto their stronger foot, Liverpool are actively debating something more old-school: using him as a traditional winger, hugging the touchline, going on the outside and whipping balls into the box.

There is a bigger picture here. Liverpool must find more reliable ways to feed £125m striker Alexander Isak. They need volume and quality of chances. A right-sided Ngumoha, stretching defences and crossing early, could be one of the tools to unlock that investment.

His age works in Iraola’s favour. Compared to targets like Barcola, Ngumoha is still at the very start of his senior career. That makes him more malleable, more open to being reshaped into a different type of wide player if the coaching staff believe that is where his ceiling lies.

Pre-season will offer the first real clues. Does Iraola keep him on the left, where he has already shone, or flip him to the right and start building a long-term replacement path for Salah? The answer will echo through Liverpool’s transfer strategy for the rest of the window.

What Liverpool liked about Iraola at Bournemouth was not just his aggressive, front-foot football but his record with young forwards. Eli Junior Kroupi, Rayan and Antoine Semenyo all kicked on under his watch. Ngumoha now walks into that same environment, a teenager with a growing reputation and a manager renowned for sharpening attacking talent.

The temptation to mould him into the next great Liverpool winger will be hard to resist. The positional tweak might look minor on a team sheet. For Iraola’s Liverpool, it could be the start of an entirely new attacking era.