Andoni Iraola Arrives at Liverpool to Rebuild a Club in Crisis After Salah's Exit

Just a year ago, the only question surrounding Liverpool wasn't whether the club would win the Premier League, but how many more trophies it would add after the most expensive transfer window in the competition's history. Twelve months later, the club is in the middle of a trophyless season, fired Arne Slot amid friction with players and fans, and watched its modern-day idol, Mohamed Salah, walk out the door. Everything changed, and fast.

To bring order to that locker room, Liverpool turned to Andoni Iraola, at a moment that couldn't be more uncertain: a quiet transfer window and a boardroom in the middle of a full overhaul. What the Basque coach does bring is a track record that offers real hope: at Bournemouth he showed a remarkable ability to get the most out of whatever squad he had, no matter how many of his best players were sold off each summer.

A Squad Still Taking Shape

Last season, Liverpool took the field with heavyweight signings like Jeremie Frimpong, Hugo Ekitike, Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak, fresh off winning the English title. It looked like a team no one could stop going forward. But those investments exposed a serious problem at the back and in midfield, made worse by a wave of injuries and dips in form from regular starters. The club moved, above all, in central defense: to cover the departure of Ibrahima Konaté, Liverpool turned to young Jérémy Jacquet and to Ronald Araújo, on loan from Barcelona in hopes he can recapture his best form. Alongside academy product Giovanni Leoni, still recovering from a torn ACL, that pairing will need to support a 35 year old Virgil van Dijk, still a leader in the group even as his reading of the game has started to show cracks.

Midfield is even more worrying. So far, Liverpool's only move in that area might end up being a departure: Curtis Jones is closing in on a switch to Inter Milan. Without reinforcements arriving, Iraola will need Dominik Szoboszlai to keep performing at a high level, Ryan Gravenberch to stay healthy and, above all, Alexis Mac Allister to significantly raise his output.

The Specialist in Getting More Out of Players

Part of the quiet transfer window has an explanation behind the scenes: Michael Edwards stepped down as CEO of football, and a consortium led by Jeff Bezos bought a significant minority stake in the club. Amid that reshuffle, one of Edwards' last decisions could prove decisive: hiring Iraola. The Basque coach doesn't just bring a more aggressive pressing style and a more direct approach going forward, something fans and players had missed under his predecessor. He also brings a proven record of lifting both individual and collective performance. At Bournemouth, he improved the club's league position every single year he was there, even as his best players kept leaving for bigger clubs. In his first season, he turned Dominic Solanke into a 19 goal scorer in the Premier League after years of modest returns, a transformation that led to a big money sale to Tottenham. He replaced that output with the combined contributions of Justin Kluivert and Evanilson, and later with the emergence of Eli Junior Kroupi. On defense, the turnaround was even more striking. After finishing ninth, the club's best ever finish, Bournemouth sold Illya Zabarnyi, Dean Huijsen and Milos Kerkez, three of its four starting defenders. Plenty of people were predicting a relegation battle. With pieces like Adrien Truffert and Bafodé Diakité, Iraola instead guided the team to a sixth place finish, on the doorstep of the Champions League.

Now he's reunited with Kerkez, one of his key men at Bournemouth, and could add another winger in Víctor Muñoz, while the club waits to see if Liverpool can strike a deal with PSG for Bradley Barcola, seen as the player to fill the void left by Salah. It will be a season of rebuilding, with more questions than answers in the squad, but with the right man now in place to try to answer them.