If Liverpool decide to part ways with Arne Slot after Sunday’s final game of the Premier League season, it seems likely that Andoni Iraola will be the man to replace him.
After Xabi Alonso agreed to fill the vacancy at Chelsea, reports have gathered pace that Iraola could take over at Anfield.
The Basque has delivered a stunning season with Bournemouth and now looks ready to take the next step in his managerial career.
Is Andoni Iraola the right man to replace Arne Slot this summer? 🤔
Though some Liverpool fans will have reservations over hiring a manager who has never led a top club, they may change their minds after hearing Antoine Semenyo reveal that Iraola worked his players as hard as possible during his time with the Cherries.
Bournemouth players had no days off under Iraola
One of supporters’ biggest annoyances with life under Slot is that the Liverpool squad seemingly have far too much time off.
It has been a recurrent theme this season that players have been seen jetting off on holidays between matches, while Slot himself regularly appears to be spending time away as well. This came to a head before the match against Manchester United earlier this month, with supporters furious at the lack of intensity in Liverpool training.
Meanwhile, just three weeks earlier, Semenyo had been telling All Out Football that, under Iraola, Bournemouth players often went full weeks without a single day off.
READ MORE: How Andoni Iraola feels about taking over from Arne Slot at Liverpool midway through 2026/27
“The way he structured the weeks, we didn’t really have any days off, nothing,” said the Man City winger. “It’s very hard going from having Wednesday and Sunday off to having no days off.”
“We would play on the Saturday, train on Sunday. The players that were in the starting XI would do like the first maybe 30, 40 minutes of the session, so you’re hanging, your legs have gone. You’re doing the possession, you have to run around, you’re thinking ‘oh dear!’
“Even now [April 2026], it hasn’t changed, some of the boys are like ‘no day off this week again,’ in the group chat, it still hasn’t changed!
“But we set up against big teams, playing Man City, Arsenal, it’s not like we stay in mid-block, everyone’s man for man, you’re thinking ‘we’re going to get exposed here’ but once you adapt to it, yeah. You see how Bournemouth won at the weekend [against Arsenal], that’s what it was like for the three years I was there.”
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Liverpool need to bring the intensity back
Whoever is in charge at Liverpool next season, they absolutely have to make changing the structure of training a big priority.
Not only does it make the Reds ill-prepared for matches, but it also badly rubs supporters up the wrong way, making it seem like the players would rather be anywhere else but playing for their club.
Under Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool were the most intense team in Europe, working unbelievably hard from week to week.
The disappearance of this style of football is one of the biggest issues supporters have with Slot, and unless it changes, it is impossible for the Dutchman to have a long-term future at Anfield.
In Iraola, it sounds as though Liverpool could make an instant change and bring back that intensity from the word ‘go’ next season. It may take a little while to get used to again, but this is what fans want to see. If the players buy into it, as they have done at Bournemouth, success will follow.
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