Andoni Iraola’s First Liverpool Tour: Promise and Problems
Andoni Iraola’s first taste of life on the road with Liverpool had a bit of everything. Wins over Sunderland in Nashville and Wrexham in New York, then a 4-2 defeat to Leeds in Chicago that stripped away some of the gloss and exposed a few familiar scars.
For a club trying to turn a page, the tour underlined one thing above all: this is going to take time.
A new idea, still in draft
For 45 minutes against Leeds, Liverpool looked like a team already buying into Iraola’s demands. Aggressive, front-foot, suffocating without the ball. With more of the established names involved, his high-intensity blueprint flickered into life and the tempo went up a level.
Then came the second half.
Once the changes rolled in, so did the problems. Set-piece frailty resurfaced. Concentration dipped. The same old lapses that dogged last season reappeared, and Leeds punished them. It was worrying, but also instructive for a coach still learning every contour of this squad.
The context matters. Iraola has not yet coached Virgil van Dijk, Cody Gakpo, Alisson, Alexis Mac Allister or new signing Víctor Muñoz. He has not even met some of them in person. They are only due back at the AXA Training Centre this week, still recovering from the long haul back from Chicago, with Mac Allister granted extra time off after his World Cup exploits.
There are fewer than three weeks until Liverpool open their Premier League campaign at Newcastle and only a double-header against Como at Anfield left to tune up. Iraola admitted he cannot click his fingers and have a fully formed side on day one. The evidence of this tour backed him up.
A coach waiting for real backing
Iraola spent much of the trip working with a squad that looked like a pre-season B team. Eight senior players were absent on post-World Cup breaks. Six more were out injured, including Joe Gomez, who picked up his latest setback in the US.
It is no surprise the football would have looked more polished with 14 extra first‑teamers at his disposal. Yet even if everyone were fit and available, the gaps in this squad are hard to ignore.
Mohamed Salah’s departure was announced in March. Talks to end his contract early started before that. Five months on, Liverpool still have no replacement. On the right side of the attack, there is a hole where one of the greatest forwards in the club’s history used to be.
Conor Bradley’s serious knee injury leaves Liverpool light at right-back. Central defence is short on Premier League experience, even with the club’s excitement over Jérémy Jacquet and Giovanni Leoni. Leoni has returned from his anterior cruciate ligament injury in imposing physical shape, and 18-year-olds Ifeanyi Ndukwe and Mor Talla Ndiaye impressed on tour, but the realities bite hard.
Ndukwe cannot play this season because of post-Brexit work permit rules. Gomez, given his injury record, has to be treated as a bonus when available rather than a cornerstone. Iraola spoke interestingly about his preference for wingers who can operate on both flanks and the tactical edge of switching them mid-game, yet Liverpool’s right side still feels fragile, even if they manage to land Bradley Barcola from Paris Saint-Germain.
The new head coach has clear ideas. He does not yet have a squad fully equipped to execute them.
Nyoni steps out of the shadows
If the tour exposed structural issues, it also offered a glimpse of Liverpool’s future.
With senior players missing, Iraola leaned heavily on youth. Many of them did not blink. Ndukwe, Talla Ndiaye, Lewis Koumas, Kieran Morrison and Luke Chambers all enhanced their reputations with their work in training and in games.
One youngster, though, walked away from the US with his status transformed.
Nyoni arrived as a prospect. He left as a player firmly in Iraola’s plans.
The 19-year-old had been on the fringes under Arne Slot, making six Premier League appearances off the bench while Rio Ngumoha, also promoted early, racked up 19 league outings and five starts. In the States, Nyoni began to close that gap.
He looked completely at ease with Iraola’s demand to play forward quickly and decisively. Under pressure or in space, he found ways to open the pitch, using intelligent movement to create angles and passing lanes. His contribution in the buildup to Florian Wirtz’s goal against Leeds – a beautifully weighted pass that sliced open the defence – summed up his tour: sharp, brave, ambitious.
After the Leeds game, Nyoni said he knew he had to improve this summer. Across three cities and three very different matches, he backed that statement with performances.
Jones at a crossroads
For Curtis Jones, the tour carried a different tone.
With 12 months left on his contract and Inter monitoring his situation, this was a chance to make a forceful case to the new head coach. It did not quite happen.
While Nyoni and Dominik Szoboszlai slotted relatively smoothly into Iraola’s central midfield demands, Jones looked less comfortable. He struggled badly after coming on in the second half against Leeds, caught between the lines of what he wanted to do and what the system required.
What hurt him more, though, was an avoidable flash of frustration.
Against Wrexham, Jones reacted petulantly when Szoboszlai did not hand him the captain’s armband. Earlier in the tour, when Gomez went off against Sunderland, the armband had gone to Kostas Tsimikas – a reserve left-back who spent last season on loan at Roma – rather than to Jones, a boyhood Liverpool supporter and one of the more senior figures on the trip.
Twice overlooked, twice disappointed. The annoyance was understandable. The reaction was not helpful.
Jones, Szoboszlai and Tsimikas all moved quickly to laugh off the incident in the days after the Wrexham win, and the spat was inflated on social media. Yet it jarred with Iraola’s repeated emphasis on the collective during his time in Chicago. For a coach trying to build a group that runs and suffers together, individual displays of ego, however human, do not sit well.
With competition for midfield places only set to intensify once the full squad returns, Jones has little margin for missteps.
Szoboszlai steps into the spotlight
If one player embodied Liverpool on this tour, it was Szoboszlai.
With Salah, Andy Robertson, Van Dijk and Alisson all missing, the Hungary captain became the face of the club in the US. Every time he appeared – in stadiums, at open sessions, in media zones – the reaction was the same: noise, adoration, expectation.
He justified it on the pitch and on the training ground. Fresh from signing a new five-year contract, Szoboszlai trained with a sharpness that set the standard for a young, patched-together squad. His influence was not just technical but vocal, guiding teammates, driving sessions, setting the tone Iraola wants.
For supporters, he was the star attraction. For his manager, he was something more valuable: proof that there is already a leader in the dressing room ready to step into the void left by Salah and Robertson. Szoboszlai looks an obvious candidate to take one of the vice-captain roles.
Iraola’s first pre-season tour with Liverpool ends with questions over recruitment, fitness and familiarity. It also ends with a clear picture of who is ready to carry this new era – and who risks being left behind when the real football starts at St James’ Park.
