Andoni Iraola Admits What Every Liverpool Fan Is Thinking After Fulham Draw
Liverpool manager Andoni Iraola has admitted fans are right to be frustrated with the mixed nature of his start to life at Anfield.
Lured away from Bournemouth as a replacement for Arne Slot, Iraola is undefeated as Reds manager across his first five games but has overseen just two victories, with Saturday’s disappointing 0–0 draw with strugglers Fulham sparking a number of complaints from fans.
“I understand the frustration the other day because we were also frustrated,” Iraola said in response.
“I think we were coming from two good games and we were considering it as a step forward, then we had a step backwards. The performance level is not like the two other days. This happens in football.
“We have to accept it in terms of ... there are going to be up and downs in this process, but we are clear that where we want to go is more towards where we have been against Atlético Madrid and Ipswich, that’s the kind of style, that’s the kind of football we want. The key now is the consistency to perform like this.”
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Why Can Liverpool Not Find Consistency Under Iraola?
Having played just five matches so far, it would be unreasonable to expect perfection of a Liverpool side learning the methods of a new manager in a world without talisman Mohamed Salah. Significant changes like that require time to overcome.
There has, however, been a theme to Liverpool’s challenges: fatigue.
It was back in preseason that Iraola first highlighted concerns that his team were not currently able to press as much as his intense system demands. Those issues have lingered and left back Milos Kerkez claimed earlier this month that the players can only keep up for “30 or 35 minutes.”
After the slump against Fulham, Iraola pointed to a lack of “freshness” among his players who, in his eyes, were let down by physical struggles more than anything else.
Some of the issues around fatigue are unavoidable. As Iraola highlighted, the Reds just endured their first week with more than one match of the Iraola tenure, battling to victory over Atlético Madrid on Wednesday before meeting Fulham on Saturday. Keeping everyone fresh under those circumstances is a challenge every manager around the globe admits is nearly impossible.
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To try help manage that relentless schedule, Iraola would need to adjust his training methods, intentionally sabotaging his team’s quest to fully understand his run-first approach in favor of recovery. It is a tough situation in which there is rarely any winner.
Things do not look like getting much simpler for Liverpool. Tuesday’s Carabao Cup meeting with Tottenham Hotspur is followed by one final Premier League game against Bournemouth, Iraola’s former employers, on Sunday, after which the players head into an international break.
Three weeks of flying across the globe precedes no fewer than five Liverpool games across an October that does not even get started until the second week of the calendar because of the international break. Reigning champions Arsenal travel to Anfield on Nov. 1.
The chance to rest, recover and grow under Iraola is unlikely to arrive until the Reds are elimated from at least one competition—an outcome nobody truly wants, but one that may well be crucial.
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