What is an Andoni Iraola?

The biggest look into Iraola, the Head Coach

“F*cking top.“

The response I got from a friend of mine when I asked him about Andoni Iraola. Now, I can’t out him, sadly, but he’s the CEO of Football for a multi-club model operating across Europe. That’s as precise as I can be while still remaining fairly vague.

“On the three-four year horizon, he’s probably the best out there. But it’ll depend on how the squad take to him because he’s more of a Rafa [Benitez] type. He’s a tactical obsessed genius, he doesn’t upset anyone but doesn’t build huge rapport with individuals. He wants to improve them but he expects them to want to improve. But [Tommy] Elphick is quite good at the man-management side though, so he might be the buffer this Liverpool group need.”

Again, I’ll need to be vague here to hide his identity but I asked another friend who is high up at a top European club.

“Andoni is an incredible person One of the best people I’ve ever met. He deserves Liverpool and you guys deserve him. He’s obsessed with tactics and the importance of marginal gains, but he understands that fans feed off emotion.”

I’ll be honest with you guys, I liked what Iraola did at Bournemouth but I was always wary of considering him as a potential Arne Slot successor. His ties to Richard Hughes left me feeling a little uncomfortable. I didn’t have him down as a yes man, as such, but it just felt like we’d be going from one Hughes guy to another, purely for ease rather than anything else.

But having some some digging over the last couple of days, I’ve been swayed. I wanted to learn about him rather than his style of play, to begin with.

There was an interesting interview with Jonathan Northcroft a few years ago. You’ve probably seen snippets from it recently because he mentions gegenpressing and German coaches. Iraola’s Rayo Vallecano team pressed high. His Bournemouth team pressed high. It’s something he values and sticks to, almost religiously.

I’ve seen him called a Marcelo Bielsa disciple. He’s been described as Jurgen Klopp-coded. But, in the interview with Northcroft, he revealed his biggest inspiration was Ernesto Valverde. Why is this important? Well, there have been rumblings that Valverde was a short-term target for Liverpool if the Reds needed to wait for a long-term hire.

So, personally, I find it interesting that we’re seemingly set to hire his protege, without anyone really realising.

“His [Valverde] style is the club’s style. Athletic Club is the most English team in LaLiga. We like to attack fast, use the width of the pitch, overlaps and a lot of crosses, high press. And that is how I have learned to play.”

And this is how an Iraola team plays. He’s stuck to the blueprint, almost religiously, with a handful of exceptions. In a 6-1 loss to Manchester City, he switched to a 5-4-1.

“I didn’t like that game. Even in the first 30 minutes when we didn’t concede, we were very passive. Very low. It’s not how we want to play.”

He went on to say that his selection sent the wrong message to his players. Had he selected an extra midfielder but tasked them with dropping, his team might’ve been a little braver. The back five had his players thinking it was a defensive set-up and they, almost instinctively, abandoned the high press.

I rate all of that. He’s aware enough to realise the mistake. He’s bold enough to admit it was a mistake. And he’s been confident enough ever since to back his players to execute his game plan. They know what they have to do. He knows what they have to do. There’s an identity, and a distinct one at that.

The impression I get is that, unlike other managers with a brand, he doesn’t appear to have an ego. Brendan Rodgers, for example, was always trying to protect himself. Iraola, by all accounts, shoulders the blame if something goes wrong because he’s the one asking the players to take such risks.

He seems humble, realistic and grounded.

As far as comparisons go, an attack-minded Rafa Benitez doesn’t sound awful, does it? A Spanish coach with a German mentality seems about right for Anfield, too, no?

Then there’s the on-pitch stuff. I’m sure you’ve all read everything Iraola related lately. You know he’s a high press merchant. You know everyone is worried about 1) injuries 2) his ability to manage a stacked schedule 3) how he’ll cope with the players at Liverpool and the expectations.

In the nicest possible way, is there any point stressing over that right now? We know what he did at Bournemouth, it doesn’t mean he’ll do the exact same at Liverpool. Think about it, Klopp had a distinct style at BVB and he changed it at Anfield but kept the high energy identity.

Things can be tweaked as long as the identity remains. Iraola isn’t going to try and plug and play the Bournemouth way at Liverpool. He’ll adapt to the players he has while trying to get them to do what he wants.

Even Slot, famed for playing a certain way at Feyenoord, didn’t replicate that as Liverpool manager. It’s why I’m so reluctant to say Iraola will do X, Y and Z. He likely won’t. It’s naive to think he will.

All we’ll know is that there will be an aggressiveness to Liverpool, a frontfootedness with and without the ball and we’ll be fun to watch. I watched a lot of Bournemouth because of the Kerkez and Semenyo links.

One thing that stood out to me was Iraola’s ability to platform attackers and full-backs fairly well.

He turned Dominic Solanke into a 19-goal Premier League forward. Evanilson hit double digits in his debut season with the club while Antoine Semenyo scored 11 in 2024/25 and was on fire last term before City signed him. Junior Kroupi, the 19-year-old, finished with 13 goals this season. Marcus Tavernier and Rayan chipped in with goals too.

Iraola helped develop Kerkez into a £40million rated full-back while his replacement, Adrien Truffert finished this season as the player with the most assists for the Cherries.

Here’s the big thing, in my opinion. You need a Head Coach who can get the best out of your match-winners, game-breakers and goal threats. They’re the difference makers. If you can maximise the talents in the final third, you’ll always have a chance of winning games. Klopp did it. He also treated the full-backs as marginal gains and platformed them properly, something that rival managers didn’t at the time. Everyone is focused on the midfield now and shoring up the defence with centre-backs at full-back, Iraola’s decision to use attacking full-backs can be the difference at times.

Liverpool have quality attackers who need the right environment to flourish. They also have full-backs who, in the right system, can be difference-makers. Iraola’s ability to get the best out of these key areas is useful.

Was I excited when it was reported that Iraola was the man to replace Slot? Kind of, purely because the club needed a fresh start. But the more research I’ve done into him, the more excited I am for all of the right reasons.

I’ll be doing a breakdown of the Bournemouth roles soon and how the Liverpool squad looks but, like I’ve said above, more often than not, a manager will tweak his approach at a new club to adapt.