Liverpool’s Clever Pre-Season Plan for Van Dijk, Gakpo and Alisson
Liverpool’s pre-season is unfolding without the usual circus. No choreographed photo ops, no rush to parade every star in front of a new backdrop. Instead, there is something far more valuable: a plan that actually respects the players’ bodies and their summers.
Andoni Iraola spelt it out last week. Virgil van Dijk and Cody Gakpo will be on a similar training timeline to the rest of the squad, but they will start at the AXA Training Centre rather than flying out with the main group.
“They will, in terms of dates of training, be very similar but they will start training at the AXA in Liverpool,” he said. “Because of different reasons, especially Virgil because he has been the player with most minutes in Europe I would say, and Cody for other reasons, they are going to start training basically in the same week as the others but instead of making them come here with the team, we considered that it was sensible with them to start the first week training with a small group or even with younger players that are at the AXA and join us when we [return].”
In other words: no vanity flights, no forced appearances. Just work.
Van Dijk and Gakpo: Managed, Not Paraded
Van Dijk has shouldered an enormous load for club and country. Gakpo has had compassionate leave on top of his football. Dragging either of them across the Atlantic for a few minutes in a friendly would be good for content, terrible for conditioning.
So they stayed behind. Neither travelled to the United States for the Wrexham game, and both are being geared towards the Monaco fixture at Anfield on August 9. That target date gives Liverpool breathing space. Time to build, not scramble.
It also tells you plenty about Iraola. He is reading minutes, workloads and personal circumstances, then making decisions that fit the data rather than the marketing schedule. This is what a grown-up pre-season looks like.
Van Dijk, in particular, needs that protection. Years of carrying Liverpool’s back line, plus deep runs with the Netherlands, have taken a toll. You don’t squeeze more out of a player like that in July; you preserve him so he can decide games in March and April.
For Gakpo, the message is different but just as important. Compassionate leave matters. Treating his situation with respect, rather than as an inconvenience to the tour, is the sort of detail players remember.
Alisson: No Drama, Just the Right Date
The timing around Alisson Becker is being handled with the same calm. After Brazil’s World Cup exit, he is due back later this week or early next, having played every match of their campaign and 35 times in an injury-affected season for Liverpool.
There is no rush to throw him into a friendly just to reassure anyone. He returns when the schedule and his body say he should. Liverpool carry on.
The summer noise around Juventus never really went beyond that: noise. Inside Anfield, the stance stayed firm. There was no intention to sell. Sensible, and not remotely complicated. Elite goalkeepers are almost impossible to replace, and Alisson is still in that elite bracket. You do not willingly create a hole in goal and then spend the rest of the window trying to patch it.
A Pre-Season Built on Sense, Not Show
While the big names are phased back, Iraola already has senior quality to work with. Ryan Gravenberch has linked up with Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak in Chicago, giving the new manager an immediate core around which to shape ideas and patterns.
The broader picture is emerging. Liverpool are trying to hit that narrow sweet spot between sharpness and strain, between being ready for August and being exhausted by October. Pre-season often decides which way that balance tips. Get it wrong, and the opening month becomes a salvage operation. Get it right, and the season starts with clarity instead of excuses.
From a Liverpool perspective, this is exactly the sort of low-key update that carries weight. Van Dijk and Gakpo easing back in at Kirkby, away from the glare, under tailored conditions. Alisson returning on a schedule dictated by his workload, not by speculation.
After last season’s chaotic drop-off, Liverpool needed authority, structure and calm. These are only pre-season calls, but they hint at a manager who values preparation over performance for the cameras.
If the club keep following that logic when the games start to matter, the real theatre will arrive where it belongs: on the pitch.
