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Arne Slot exited Liverpool last weekend, after a disappointing follow-up season to the Reds’ 2024/25 Premier League title-winning campaign.
Andoni Iraola, who recently parted ways with Bournemouth, is now tipped to be the man who will step in as Liverpool manager and improve upon their fourth-placed finish in the season just gone.
Anfield also witnessed the departures of club legends Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson, and one of their finest modern day centre-backs in Ibrahima Konate, so what will Iraola’s immediate response be?
Task #1: Activate Florian Wirtz
While the wording may make the process seem mechanical, it will be anything but for Iraola during his first season as Liverpool manager.
Wirtz, one of Liverpool’s all-time record signings, endured a miserably disappointing debut season on Anfield, not solely for his on-ball action and physicality, but also his mentality.
Jurgen Klopp famously sowed the seeds that transported Liverpool supporters from doubters to believers, creating a squad of ‘mentality monsters’ that never said die.
Nobody embodied that way of thinking, that way of performing, better than the two men who left Liverpool in late May, Salah and Robertson, and it’s now time that Wirtz adopted their mentality.
The German needs to be higher up the pitch, operating in central areas, and providing the passes that his striker, another record signing in Alexander Isak, has every right to expect.
But first, Wirtz needs to rediscover a belief that he seemingly lost under Slot: the belief that he is one of the world’s best players and can play like so.
Maybe the long shadow of Salah's will cast a dark cloud over Liverpool’s forward options in the years to come, but if Iraola can instil that confidence in a supremely struggling Wirtz, he could be the Reds’ game-changer in the Egyptian’s absence.
Task #2: Phase out the deadwood
This one is less so in Iraola’s hands, as it remains to be seen to what extent he will be involved in Liverpool’s transfer business, or if the Reds’ owners spend freely again.
But if the ex-Bournemouth man can get his way, he needs immediate reinforcements in the midfield, backline, frontline — everywhere on the pitch, to phase out the deadwood.
Barring a shock return to form for Alexis Mac Allister at the World Cup, the Argentine’s drop-off in 2025/26 was shocking enough to warrant an Anfield exit or rotational role.
Similarly, Cody Gakpo appears to have stretched his limited talents as far as they could go for the Reds and, with no Salah left to hold his hand, a departure or bench option is also required.
When the opening sequence to Rocky III rolled in 1982, its starry-eyed audience witnessed Rocky Balboa become a “civilised” man, while his opponent, Clubber Lang, trained in squalor, not luxury — and out of survival, not complacency.
That is the hunger that Liverpool require within the heart of anyone who dons the red shirt, and Iraola must question whether those Premier League and World Cup-winning players, “civilised” after their successes, are the future backbone of a club that must enter every campaign as though they’ve never won a football match in their lives.
Experience is needed in this squad, but never in the absence of that desire, and there are far too many players present in this Liverpool side that are running dangerously close to having lost it.
Task #3: Replace Salah ‘in the aggregate’
Iraola’s most impossible task, but one that, if he can achieve it, is crucial to his success as Liverpool manager, is replacing Mohamed Salah ‘in the aggregate’.
The Reds’ owners have priors in this department — the team who coined the phrase with the Oakland A’s ‘Moneyball’ system caught the attention of Liverpool owner John W. Henry as it occurred.
Also owner of MLB team the Boston Red Sox, Henry attempted to scout Billy Bean, who saw potential in an ‘in the aggregate’ approach to sporting success then realised it in Oakland, by replacing a player’s output not through an individual, but through a collective.
Mohamed Salahs don’t grow on trees, and it’s more likely than not that Liverpool will never see a player of his calibre at Anfield ever again.
But what Iraola can do is extract enough value from the assets he does have, and perhaps gain more in the summer, to replace his legendary numbers ‘in the aggregate’.
Salah, who FourFourTwo proclaimed the greatest Premier League player ever last month, did the reverse in Liverpool’s title-winning campaign last season, replacing the output of his 2019/20 winning collective through individual statistics.
Liverpool’s front five during their 99-point title-winning season recorded 102 Premier League goal involvements between them, with Salah registering 29 and Sadio Mane tallying 25.
In the Reds’ 2024/25 title-winning campaign, in the absence of Mane and Roberto Firmino, Salah upped that number to a record-breaking 47, but the front five’s output still reached 101 involvements.
If their two Premier League victories are anything to go off, Iraola must find a way to extract over 100 goal contributions from his five highest-output players next season, and that is possible.
With another 20+ goal campaign from Isak, and a sprinkle of assists, and the Wirtz explosion that everyone has been waiting on, Liverpool would be halfway there.
Whilst not yet on Salah’s level in a Liverpool shirt, he does possess enough to reach that magic number, and lucrative summer business could make an ‘in the aggregate’ dream his reality.
Throw in a hopefully returning Hugo Ekitike to chip in further down the line as the Premier League’s version of the NBA’s ‘sixth man’, and Iraola could be in business.
