Andoni Iraola returns to Bournemouth on Sunday as Liverpool head coach and says he is still learning on the job
Andoni Iraola will face his former club Bournemouth on Sunday after taking charge at Liverpool and says he is still learning on the job.
Alisson criticised Liverpool’s unbeaten start that has included three draws after the recent stalemate with Fulham, telling the club’s in-house media: “Unbeaten with three draws is not something to celebrate too much with this shirt. We take the clean sheet but we are not happy at all. We need to aim for big things.” The expectation on a side containing three £100m-plus forwards is high, and Iraola accepts tough decisions are necessary as he seeks to improve a mixed start.
Iraola acknowledged he knows Bournemouth’s squad well and conceded the fixture will be “a tricky one because they know very well what we try to do,” adding: “But I also know their strengths and weaknesses. It’s going to be strange for me.” He spent more than two hours in June debriefing Marco Rose, his successor at the Vitality Stadium, after what Iraola described as an exit that “was so clean,” and stayed on the south coast while his two young children finished school.
Bournemouth drew more Premier League matches than any other side last season under Iraola, being held 18 times while Leeds were second on 14. Ten of those stalemates came at the Vitality — 52.63% of their home league fixtures — and Bournemouth missed out on the fifth Champions League spot by three points to a Liverpool team that “stumbled over the line under Arne Slot.” Over his last 38 league games, Iraola has drawn 21 times, a sequence matched only by Mark Hughes across 38 games between October 2009 and February 2011; Hughes had a seven-month break between jobs, making Iraola the first Premier League coach to draw 21 of 38 in a continuous run.
Iraola admits the Liverpool sample is small and he is still seeking balance, with changes in both full-back positions and central midfield evident. He accepted that a draw with Liverpool carries different weight than one with Bournemouth, saying: “That’s totally fair. But it’s something that I knew before coming here. When you draw 2-2 at Newcastle with Bournemouth it is probably a good result, but I understand that with Liverpool it is not a good result. The goals of the team are different and the expectations are different as well.” Three points from four league games so far have allowed Arsenal and Manchester City to open a six-point gap over the 2025 champions.
Fulham represented “a step backwards,” Iraola said, after “two steps forward” against Ipswich and Atlético Madrid, but Tuesday’s Carabao Cup win over Tottenham provided a timely lift. Having demanded greater effort from his forwards after the Fulham draw, Iraola rested Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, Bradley Barcola and Victor Muñoz for the cup tie, with youngsters Lewis Koumas, James McConnell, Rio Ngumoha and Trey Nyoni making what the club described as tireless contributions. Iraola noted academy players appeared more receptive to his methods, and added that Wirtz followed a good Champions League performance with an indifferent Premier League display.
On selection and roles Iraola stressed consistency of demands: “For me the demands on the players and positions are the same. I don’t give different instructions to one player because he is more expensive than another player who has cost us less money. The demands are always the same. But I also have to adjust to the things that some players can do and others cannot do. The strengths and weaknesses of players are different, so we have to always adapt the team to try and maximise the collective side of this. In Bournemouth we had players who could run forever and other players who could not do it. It was not like everyone in Bournemouth was running. Some of them were faster, others were slower, some of them scored more goals, some are good at set pieces. There is no standard player. I feel all the players here are doing everything to try to win and to try and get where we want as quickly as possible. But sometimes I need to adapt too to the players that we have.” When asked if he would want 11 players with Koumas’s mentality he replied: “That is a cheating question,” he said, laughing. “I love the desire of Koumas, I love what he gives, but every player has different weaknesses and strengths. He is a good example especially for the players coming from the academy, he is grabbing his opportunity and doing everything to try to gain minutes. But I also have to work with Koumas a lot in other areas. There are things he has to improve.”
Iraola faces Bournemouth on Sunday and will use the extended international break to wrestle with selection decisions depending on how that return unfolds. He has shown himself unafraid of making big calls as he seeks to adapt Liverpool’s squad to his demands.