Andoni Iraola's Liverpool: Key Pre-Season Challenges Ahead
Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool era has barely begun, but the clock is already ticking.
The first wave of players has drifted back through the doors at the AXA Training Centre. The real work starts next week, when Iraola finally has his full pre-season group together before they fly to the United States on July 20. For a club still nursing the bruises of a flat campaign, this summer is not a gentle warm-up. It’s a reset.
Three issues sit right at the heart of it.
1. Fast‑track Jacquet
Jeremy Jacquet turns 21 on Monday. He’s just arrived in a £60m deal, is coming off shoulder surgery that cut short his season in February, and is walking into one of the most scrutinised defences in Europe.
There’s nowhere to hide at Anfield, but Liverpool’s hierarchy would not have pushed that fee across the table if they doubted his temperament. They see a partner for Virgil van Dijk. Iraola’s job is to accelerate that process without breaking him.
With Giovanni Leoni still working his way back from the ACL injury suffered 10 months ago, the picture for pre-season is already forming. Jacquet is expected to line up next to Joe Gomez throughout the summer as Liverpool’s central defensive pairing. Every touch, every duel, every mistake will be watched and replayed, even if the matches are technically about fitness.
The Frenchman’s unveiling last week showed a player eager to embrace the stage rather than shrink from it. That matters. So does Iraola’s track record. At Bournemouth, the Basque coach took Dean Huijsen, sharpened his game, and helped propel him from promising youngster to Spain international and, ultimately, a £60m signing for Real Madrid. That story will not be lost on Jacquet, or on those inside Liverpool who want that precedent repeated.
This tour will be Jacquet’s stage in more ways than one. He is the only senior summer signing making the trip. In a squad that otherwise feels familiar, he becomes the focal point of curiosity. The club can dress the games up as conditioning exercises, but for Jacquet, they are auditions. Iraola needs him ready, not just to cope with the Premier League, but to look comfortable alongside van Dijk from the moment the real stuff starts.
If Liverpool are to tighten up and climb again, that partnership cannot wait until October.
2. Curtis Jones: stay, go, or start again?
Curtis Jones returns from holiday in Mallorca next week with more on his mind than sunburn and jet lag.
His Liverpool future hangs in the balance. Inter have already tested the water twice. Their second offer, just under £22m, was quickly turned away, and Liverpool’s stance has been clear: they would only reluctantly consider a sale somewhere around the £35m mark. The gap in valuation is wide enough that some at Anfield wonder if the move has already stalled.
That leaves Jones in a curious limbo. On one hand, he is the local lad, the Academy graduate who grew up dreaming of Anfield nights. On the other, rival clubs, including Inter and Aston Villa, have sensed an opportunity, noting his inconsistent game-time and wondering if a door might open.
Pre-season with Iraola could slam that door shut.
With Alexis Mac Allister still at the World Cup and Ryan Gravenberch away on his break, there is a vacancy in midfield for the early part of the summer. A route straight into Iraola’s first serious XIs is there for Jones if he can seize it. For a player who ended last season on the fringes more often than he would like, that is not a chance to waste.
But the decision cannot be one-sided. Iraola will want clarity. He needs to know whether Jones sees this as a fresh start or a farewell tour. There is little value in building a midfield structure around a player whose head is already half-turned towards Serie A or another Premier League project.
Those conversations, quiet and away from cameras, could shape more than one career. If Jones convinces Iraola that he is ready to fight for a central role in this new Liverpool, the path is there: a strong tour, minutes in the Premier League while Mac Allister eases back, and a reset of his status inside the squad.
If not, the next time he boards a plane, it might not be for a pre-season tour.
3. Ngumoha and the right‑wing question
Liverpool’s recruitment drive this summer has told its own story. They have triggered Victor Munoz’s £34.5m release clause at Osasuna and signalled to RB Leipzig that they are prepared to go as high as £86m for Yan Diomande. Both are flexible, both can move across the line, but both feel most at home off the left.
Interest in Bradley Barcola at Paris Saint-Germain points in the same direction. Again, another left-sider.
All of this is happening while Liverpool quietly prepare for life after Mohamed Salah on the right of the front three. The idea of spending huge money on a player, then asking him to learn a new flank, has raised eyebrows internally. It is one thing to sign a star. It is another to immediately push him away from his best zone.
That is where Rio Ngumoha comes in.
A year ago, he was a promising youngster. Now, he is a 17-year-old with a Premier League goal, a starting role at Liverpool by the end of last season, and a senior England cap. His breakthrough last summer vaulted him into the first-team picture; his late-August strike in that chaotic 3-2 win at Newcastle United announced him to the league just days before his 17th birthday.
His rise did not stop there. By the end of the campaign he had forced his way into Liverpool’s XI and into Gareth Southgate’s thoughts, delivering a player-of-the-match performance against New Zealand in the United States last month before narrowly missing out on a World Cup spot.
Liverpool’s response has been decisive. They want him tied down. A new contract will be on the table when he turns 18 in late August. Bayern Munich have been watching closely, but Liverpool are in no mood to let another elite talent walk away.
The tactical question now is where to place him.
Ngumoha’s cameo for England in America came from the right, and it has stirred debate at Anfield. In an era dominated by inverted wingers cutting inside onto their stronger foot, Liverpool are weighing something more old-fashioned: Ngumoha as a traditional wide man on the right, staying high and wide, taking full-backs on the outside and whipping dangerous balls into the box.
It is not just a stylistic quirk. Long term, Liverpool must find better ways to feed £125m striker Alexander Isak. He needs service, angles, and repeated high-value chances. A right-sided Ngumoha, stretching the pitch and delivering early crosses, offers one possible solution.
Given his limited senior mileage compared to targets like Barcola, there is also a sense that Ngumoha is still malleable. Iraola, who built a reputation at Bournemouth for improving young forwards such as Eli Junior Kroupi, Rayan and Antoine Semenyo, may look at the teenager and see a blank canvas on the right.
Pre-season will provide the first clues. Does Iraola keep Ngumoha on the left, where he has done much of his early damage, or does he begin the process of reshaping him into Salah’s long-term successor on the opposite flank?
For a coach who thrives on moulding young attackers, the temptation will be obvious. For Liverpool, the stakes could not be clearer. Between Jacquet’s bedding-in, Jones’s crossroads, and Ngumoha’s positioning, this is more than a routine summer camp.
It is the first hard outline of what Iraola’s Liverpool will look like when the real tests arrive.
