We all joked through that first season about “this will be Slot’s real test.” I enjoyed how well it was joking but remained cautious that none of it told us anything about how he would react to the adversity that was always going to come at some point. And while we shouldn’t really think/talk like this, the fact he is Dutch always made me very uneasy about how that would go.
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And I think we should be. While I completely agree Slot needed to go, I think my concern is mainly pointed at those above Iraola at the moment. Something makes me uncomfortable and it isn’t my back which is still in pieces.
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Haha, I was just trying to be funny, but I don’t expect anyone here to be a closeted Arsenal current football style fan. 
It seems to me Iraola is going in the opposite direction, so even if it ends up with less success than we would hope for, it’s less likely that it will be a joyless one and without style.
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Right. The name. I’ve seen lots about it, and listened and listened to the man himself.
I am hearing three syllables and most are making it four syllables.
I am hearing:
Ee
Row (like argument, not Steve Redgrave)
La (lovely Scouse ending)
Iraola. Three syllables.
I’m inviting everyone to join the three syllable crusade (or teach me otherwise, if I am hearing it wrong!)
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Can we still get it to rhyme with champagne that tastes like Coca-Cola?
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Three things most football journos and pundits are getting wrong about Iraola to Liverpool.
- He’s coming to a bigger club and it’s a massive risk because so many managers cannot make the step up. Wrong. He’s already proved he can make the step up to a bigger club every time he’s earned a new job as they were all to bigger clubs.
- His high-pressing style is Klopp-like and is a revert to heavy metal. True, but that’s an issue of possession and not the key element to the Cherries’ success under Iraola which is his players’ use of movement to advance upfield. It’s a revert to that classic; ‘pass and move, it’s the Liverpool groove’ that is going to be the most telling improvement.
- Arne Slot failed because his style of play was ponderous and boring. Wrong. Slot was fired because he was actually a mirror image of Amorim - guilty of jettisoning a proven winning formula for a dogmatic style that clearly didn’t work and then stubbornly refusing to admit it needed change. I can’t believe how the paralells with Amorim have been ignored.
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I’m saying it E-Rai-Ola and if he says it’s pronounced differently then he is wrong.
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Slot won the PL. This is revisionism at its worst
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I got my answer.
https://www.thisisanfield.com/2026/06/andoni-iraola-first-press-conference-delayed-liverpool-2026/
Where did I say he didn’t win the title? He won it using the blood n guts Klopp style and then shifted to his own method even before the season was finished. That’s ideological vanity and he then watched for an entire season that his methods did not work but refused to change them. The definition of hubris.
Thanks for number 20 Arne and no hard feelings but you deserved to go.
Not sure I see it. Second part yes but I must have missed the United success somewhere.
True, but I meant Slot had zero success once he brought in his own style. The point is they both refused to admit their way wasn’t working.
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Agreed on thanking Slot for #20. He won it, period! And he won it as the coach, period. Using his lineups, his formations, his tactical changes, his game model…
Then he lost it in the following season for which he was canned, period.
We do not need the revisionism…
And now we have a new manager. Lets focus on him, not trying to denigrate the previous who won a PL title…
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Sorry if this was shared already, but I thought it was a very interesting breakdown of Iraola’s potential approach at Liverpool.
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Fuck you Carragher… Just when we start to get a feelgood factor about the club again and the anticipated football to be played… as the miserable bastard you are, it seems you are determined to piss over any enthusiasm the fans might have…
Why don’t you just stay away from all things LFC related…
Jamie Carragher has questioned Liverpool’s decision-making process after the appointment of Andoni Iraola as Arne Slot’s successor.
Writing in The Telegraph, Carragher said: “The main credentials for coaching one of Europe’s best ought to be based on what a candidate has won, at what level, and with what style of play. Iraola ticks one of those boxes. His strongest claim to joining Liverpool is that his Bournemouth side resembled how Klopp liked to play.”
He also warned: “It is also revealing how all the noises coming out of the club reflect the eagerness to find someone who the hierarchy consider closer to the German’s style than Slot’s. Every managerial appointment is a risk, but profiling future Liverpool managers based on how they measure up to the populist idea of ‘heavy-metal football’ is dangerous.”
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