Liverpool's New Era Under Andoni Iraola: Bright Starts and Brutal Fades

Liverpool’s new era under Andoni Iraola has begun with a jolt – and a pattern that will already be testing Anfield’s patience.

For the second friendly in succession, Liverpool sprinted into a two-goal lead, dazzled for half an hour, then collapsed. Leeds in Chicago. Monaco at Anfield. Same script, same warning.

Bright starts, brutal fades

In Chicago on 2 August, Iraola walked off after a 4-2 defeat by Leeds talking about lessons. He said he had “learned a lot of things” from that game, and there was enough in the first half to justify the line. Liverpool were quick, direct, aggressive. Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak looked like they had been here for years, not weeks.

Against Monaco on Sunday, the opening 30 minutes were, again, the best version of Iraola’s Liverpool so far. The ball fizzed through midfield, the press bit high up the pitch, and Anfield could briefly see the outline of what this side might become.

Then the legs went. And so did the game.

As changes rolled in – nine substitutions against Leeds, 11 against Monaco – Liverpool turned into something else entirely. Not just disjointed. Overrun. Leeds hit four times in 25 minutes without reply in Chicago. Monaco found three unanswered goals in 44 minutes on Merseyside. Two friendlies, two lost two-goal leads, seven goals conceded after the hour mark.

This time, Iraola dropped the diplomacy. With the Premier League kick-off just a fortnight away, he admitted his team have “work to do” and simply cannot sustain the level he demands for 90 minutes. He praised the first 30 minutes, then delivered the blunt punchline: “They don’t have much more, in terms of the levels required to play like this.”

A demanding style, a tired squad

The problem is not tactical buy-in. The problem is the body.

Some players are still dragging themselves back towards full fitness after a post-World Cup break. Others – Conor Bradley, Hugo Ekitike, Giovanni Leoni – are out for lengthy spells. The squad, as it stands, is trying to play Iraola football on pre-season legs.

Anyone who watched his Bournemouth side last season knows what that means. High press, high line, high risk. One-on-one duels all over the pitch. Relentless running. Bournemouth ranked first in the Premier League for direct attacks and third for high turnovers under Iraola. It is a style that stretches opponents – and his own players.

The new manager has wasted no time making that clear. In an open training session in Chicago, his voice cut through the session: “Quicker, quicker.” One player told BBC Sport he felt sick after the first few sessions. Lose a drill, and the punishment is a full-pitch sprint there and back.

Milos Kerkez summed it up simply: Iraola wants them to “play one-on-one all over the pitch, to press high and to always be on the front foot.” That sounds thrilling. It also sounds exhausting.

To help drive that, Iraola has brought Pablo de la Torre with him to Liverpool, the fitness specialist who worked under him at Bournemouth. The message from the staff is consistent: if Liverpool are going to play this way, their physical level has to rise. Quickly.

Recruitment and reality

There is at least one reinforcement on the way. Uruguay defender Ronald Araujo is close to completing a season-long loan move from Barcelona, offering cover at both centre-back and right-back and, crucially, another athlete capable of living in big spaces.

Virgil van Dijk, now the figurehead of the dressing room, chose his words carefully after the Monaco defeat. “Let’s see what the next couple of weeks are going to bring,” he said. “Any quality we can add to the team will definitely be welcome so let’s see.”

That is as close as a captain comes in pre-season to saying what everyone can see: this squad, in its current physical state, is struggling to play the football the manager wants for more than half an hour.

Iraola knows this story, though. At Bournemouth, it took him 10 games to find his first league win in 2023-24. His principles never shifted. The board held their nerve. The payoff was a side that became one of the most awkward, energetic opponents in the division.

Liverpool is a different universe. Ten games without a win here would not just be “unacceptable”; it would be unthinkable. The margin for patience is thinner, the scrutiny harsher, the expectations far higher. Yet the same logic applies: this style does not click overnight.

Time, and how quickly it runs out

Across four pre-season games, the pattern is already familiar. Liverpool start like a storm, play “in a busy manner” – Iraola’s ideal – then fade sharply. The intensity he craves is there, but only in bursts. The players have felt it in their lungs and legs. The staff have seen it on the pitch.

Iraola is not pretending otherwise. Asked in Chicago whether it would take time for his full style to appear, he did not reach for the easy line. “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 admitted. “We will have to do this as quickly as possible.”

That is the tension of this Liverpool pre-season. The idea is clear. The football, at its best, is exhilarating. The players, though, are discovering the cost of playing it. And the calendar is not slowing down for anyone.

Two weeks remain until the real games begin. The question now is not whether Iraola’s methods will make Liverpool entertaining. They already are. It is whether this squad can reach his physical demands fast enough to stop those electric openings turning into all-too-familiar collapses when the points start to count.