Liverpool supporters are digging into whatever they can find to get the lowdown on the man who looks primed to follow Arne Slot in the Anfield dugout this summer: Andoni Iraola.
The Spaniard is fairly well known to Reds fans already having spent the past three years in the Premier League with Bournemouth, but ever since news broke on Saturday that he’s the favourite to replace Slot, supporters have been desperate to learn more.
Mostly what they have found has been positive. Iraola loves a front-footed chaos-based brand of football which is sure to resonate with the Anfield crowd and has steadily improved every club he’s been at.
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Nevertheless, after hearing journalist Mark McAdam give some insight into how the Basque handles his relationship with his players, Iraola might just have to tweak things at Liverpool if he doesn’t want to go the same way as Slot.
Iraola does not involve himself personally with his players
Although Iraola seems like a personable manager who is on good terms with his players, McAdam suggested on the Sky Sports Premier League Podcast that he does not actually forge such close relationships with them.
“Interestingly with Andoni, he doesn’t have individual relationships with players,” says the journalist. “He lets his coaching staff speak to players. He obviously speaks to them on the training pitch.
“He does his presentations. But a lot of that work is done by Bournemouth, certainly Tommy Elphick, Sean Cooper, Pablo [De la Torre]. They have the relationships with the players.”
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“They know what’s going on with the players, wives, girlfriends, kids, families, what’s happening off the pitch.
“They do all of that work and then feed in to Andoni, just so you know, this player’s got this going on, or this is happening, or this player thinks this. And then Andoni will assimilate that and work out what he wants to do.”
Iraola must not fall into the same trap as Slot
Clearly this approach has been working for Iraola at Bournemouth, but he must assess his group at Liverpool before choosing to do the same in his new job.
The Liverpool squad had some issues with Slot’s more impersonal approach last season, and while it is always unfair to compare managers to each other, Jurgen Klopp showed what can be achieved with certain members of the group by putting more of an arm around them.
Be honest, are you upset it’s Iraola and not Xabi Alonso? 👀
Sounds like Liverpool were always leaning towards the Bournemouth boss…
If Iraola becomes detached from the players he is demanding so much of, they have already shown that they could potentially turn against him.
Luckily, the latest news is that the former Bournemouth manager will be taking his coaching staff with him, so that bridge between him and the players will exist.
However, there is no guarantee that Liverpool players will take to his coaches in the same manner the Cherries’ squad did, and Iraola must strike a balance here.
That is not to say he must change his approach, but he may need to be mindful of tweaking it to fit the squad he has.
Iraola will be demanding much more in a physical sense than the current Liverpool squad have been used to under Slot. If he alienates them in a personal sense as well, he could risk making his position untenable. So much of the groundwork on Iraola has been positive, and this does not take away from that, but he must do what he can to get the players on side as quickly as possible. That may mean altering his approach when he takes the reins at Anfield.
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