Well, right now, all the players are either on holiday or at the world cup.
Just based on his contract, I presume he and his coaches will start work officially on 1st July 2026. I would also think that he may need some time to relocate his whole family to Liverpool itself.
However, the scouting and transfers side of the business is being led by Hughes and Edwards..I would think that Iraola’s input would be in way before 30th June 2026.
Looking at the squad, Iraola can work with this squad and achieve better outcomes than Slot.
The key pressing issues with this squad makeup is the lack of a midfield destroyer and no pacy RW.
Morrison has short burst of acceleration but he has no fast pace to stretch and worry PL defences or recover defensively in OOP. Josh Abe is just way too young at this point. Elliott and Chiesa are just the more senior version of Morrison.
As for our Midfield selections, it is safe to say the destroyer position is not very good with Endo set to depart. All of our Midfielders (including Trey) bar for Wirtz and Endo are your typical 8s. It can only work if our opposition’s midfield is utter shit. The moment the opposition has someone who can run at pace in transition at the middle of the park, we are all fucked again.
Hopefully, the club puts all its efforts in ensuring Iraola gets the RW and DM that he needs. The last thing Iraola needs is another no.8.
@Sweeting I dont know that the entire narrative would hold up (going back to some of the older reporting on Alonso, Im genuinely not convinced he was ever that strongly favoured), but I think that story connects some dots very well so there is probably a good amount to it.
Regarding the idea that what we wanted was a stop gap guy to lead us through the post-Klopp transition until our preferred candidate had gained the experience we wanted, it is interesting to go back to the reporting from this time 2 years ago. People remember Amorim as being one of the other top candidates, but the familiarity of that part of the story vastly outweighs how much actual consideration he was given. The two other candidates reported at the time as being ones we were actually interested in - Ernesto Valverde (won 2 titles at Barca but was also in charge for the corner taken quickly game) and Spalletti who had just won a title with Napoli. The interesting commonality between them - they were both already in their 60s and tended not to stay anywhere for more than a few years. Does that add weight to the idea that our goal 2 years ago was to buy time until this guy was ready? I’m not sure, but I think if that is the story someone lands on then this tidbit from 2 years ago is an interesting supplement to that.
What is interesting going back to that same reporting from 2 years is just how badly Slot failed on the terms of what identified him as being the right candidate them. A continuity of playing style with what the team was already built to play, an understanding of how that connects with the fans, a trust in youth and commitment to developing them. These were allegedly the strengths that saw him identified as the right guy and when you remember that it makes it harder to conceive of how there ever could have been a thought of keeping him on.
I’ve been wondering what precisely caused them to pivot to Iraola. I originally suspected (hoped) that they were negotiating with Enrique and got the green light, but that wasn’t true obviously. It could not simply be the availability of Iraola, as that was known for weeks prior to them sacking Arne and they were still backing him publicly. I’m sure they liked Iraola a lot, but his availability did not persuade them to act initially. Therefore, the decision to sack Slot was more about Slot than it was about Iraola - a concern that the vibes could be toxic next year if Arne is brought back.
I’m worried that they were motivated to sack Slot, in part, because they looked at the state of the squad, the major investments that would be needed, and decided they weren’t willing to go big in the market again.
And if they’re not going big in the market, they couldn’t stick with Slot - the supporters would be primed to mutiny from MW1.
So, they decided to sack Slot and hope that supporters will be patient with the new manager, even if the club doesn’t spend what’s needed to improve the club in the short term.
I hope that isn’t true, because it would be unfair to Iraola. I think he’ll get more out of some of our players, but there are multiple positions that need reinforcement, and that won’t come cheap.
Diomande is just one, though. They’re going to make some signings this summer. But maybe they’ll make 2 or 3 instead of six or so, as has been suggested (reasonably, I might add).
Sure. I thought there was something about the Air Force and deployment on the Middle East - I may have chatGPT hallucinated that but that’s what I had thought. Like you said I haven’t thought this through a lot and I tend just to (mis)remember the odd factoid: like @gasband is both a talented comedian and famous artist for his seagul and horse drawings; @flobs is a five star hotelier; @mascotis a mellow relaxed guy with very moderate centre left leanings; @walshy is our ITK whose only fault is he’s too bullish about our players and @prolix and @ some Irish guy (whose handle escapes me) both see through my nice guy persona and like to call me out as a five-star something.
I will preface this by saying I don´t really know what defines a player as an 8 and a 6 or DM and CM nowadays, but I wanted to add that for me the problem with most of our midfielders is that they are all-rounders but not great at anything.
I think midfield in general had 3 roles - protect the back four, create for the attackers, control the game with the ball (and bring attackers into the game with that control).
Dom, Mac and Grav aren´t really that good at any of those 3 roles and I absolutely don´t want another all-rounder (Scott would be one in my opinion), like that who doesn´t excel at any of those 3 functions.
People call Wharton a DM and for me he isn´t. He´s all about what he does on the ball and I´d consider that a normal CM. I´d actually argue we need both a DM and a CM because of the aforementioned point.
I´m veeeeery curious to see how Iraola would set up the midfield given our current options and a bigger cheque book to buy what he wants.
I personally think it was the impossibility for a path back with the fans. That sealed his fate. I think there’s a reasonable chance he would have been here next year if there wasn’t the fan hostility.
