Andoni Iraola's Vision for Alexander Isak at Liverpool

Andoni Iraola is not worried about whether Alexander Isak can finish. He knows the goals will come. What keeps the Liverpool head coach busy on the training ground is everything that happens before the shot.

Isak starts this season as Liverpool’s lone senior centre-forward. Hugo Ekitike is still sidelined after Achilles surgery, Mohamed Salah has gone, and the Swede suddenly stands at the heart of Iraola’s attacking plan. Keeping him on the pitch is non-negotiable.

Last year at Anfield never really got going for him. His debut campaign was shredded by injuries: only 12 starts, 22 appearances, four goals. Just one of those came after he broke his leg at Tottenham shortly before Christmas. Liverpool saw flashes of the striker they thought they were buying, but never the full picture.

Iraola is determined to change that.

“Alex is going to be a very important player for us this season,” he said. “Right now he is in a very good place; he has been training every day, he has not missed a session, he has been adding more and more minutes every friendly game.

“He played a very good World Cup in terms of availability, fitness level, and I want to keep him there as much as we can. We know his level and if we can keep him there he will score the goals and give us a lot of things.”

The goals, though, are only part of the job description.

Isak’s connection with Florian Wirtz, restored to his natural No. 10 role after being shuffled around under Arne Slot, is expected to be a key axis of Liverpool’s attack. Iraola wants that relationship to become the team’s reference point, with Isak not just finishing moves but helping to build them.

“Probably my fight with him, my instructions, are more in terms of without the ball and how he can help in his position when we are with the ball so he can open spaces for other players,” Iraola explained. “I am not trying to focus in terms of goals but he is a striker, he will want to score, but I try not to judge the strikers if they score or if they haven’t.”

The first real test of this new version of Isak could hardly be more charged. Liverpool open their Premier League campaign on Sunday at Newcastle, the club he forced his way out of last summer after effectively going on strike to push through his move to Anfield. The reception will be hostile. The motivation obvious.

Iraola, though, refused to dress it up as a personal grudge match.

“I suppose it is always special when you play against your ex-team in their stadium — in the same way when I go back to Bournemouth you always want to do well,” he said. “The first game of the season everyone will be very motivated and I think it is going to be the same for Alex.”

Behind Isak, the depth chart is thin. With Ekitike unlikely to return before the new year and Liverpool’s recruitment drive focused on wide players — their second £60 million bid for Brighton winger Yankubu Minteh has already been rejected — Iraola has to find internal solutions.

One of them wears No. 18.

Cody Gakpo has been linked, somewhat implausibly given Liverpool’s lack of forwards, with a move to Tottenham. Inside the club, though, the Dutchman is being discussed as a potential stand-in through the middle, reprising the central role he often played under Jurgen Klopp.

“In pre-season we haven’t tried as we don’t have enough wingers and we prioritised what we need from him in his preferred position as a left-winger,” Iraola said. “But I have been talking to him about his minutes as a nine; he has done it before and in certain situations he could help us in the nine position.”

For now, everything still circles back to Isak: his fitness, his movement, his understanding with Wirtz, his ability to absorb the pressure of being Liverpool’s only recognised No. 9. The goals will matter, of course. But for Iraola, the real question is whether his main striker can become the catalyst for an attack that has been rebuilt on the fly.