New head coach needs to use the transfer market with defensive cover vital as injuries hamper US pre-season tour
“Faster, faster,” bellowed Andoni Iraola throughout the open training session Liverpool held in Chicago on Friday. His first pre-season tour as Liverpool head coach ends at the city’s famous Soldier Field Stadium on Sunday, with a friendly against Leeds, and “faster, faster” could apply to all aspects of the club’s preparations for a new Premier League campaign that begins in three weeks’ time.
Iraola was in his element as he immersed himself at the centre of every training drill that Liverpool performed at Chicago Fire’s Endeavor Health Performance Center, their base for the past two weeks in the US. “Faster, faster” was the new head coach’s instruction to his players as three teams of seven worked on their pressing games. He also shouted it when they walked over to a different pitch, recently vacated by Robert Lewandowski and his new Chicago Fire teammates, to work on offensive and defensive set-piece routines. Sprints were demanded following every rondo.
There is an urgency to Iraola’s situation at Liverpool as he works towards his first season in charge, not only to his style of football. Post World-Cup holidays have deprived him of eight first-team players so far, injuries of a further six.
It was telling that, after Liverpool’s open training session had ended, many of the fans invited headed to the gym for a look through its glass windows. Jérémy Jacquet, Liverpool’s £60m recruit from Rennes, was inside working on his recovery from a shoulder problem.
He was joined by Giovanni Leoni, who is rehabilitating from an anterior cruciate ligament rupture and appears to have doubled in chest size since sustaining the injury on his Liverpool debut last September. Nearby was Joe Gomez, who pulled up with a muscle injury eight minutes into the first friendly of the tour. All central defenders, all out.
The concentration of problems in one particular area was a recurring theme under Arne Slot last season and has not eased yet. Two 18-year-olds, Mor Talla Ndiaye and Ifeanyi Ndukwe, have impressed in their absence but Liverpool are looking to loan out the latter next season having been unable to secure a work permit.
Among the observers on Friday was Mike Gordon, the president of Liverpool’s owners, Fenway Sports Group, who has returned to a more hands-on role at the club after the departure of Michael Edwards as FSG’s chief executive of football.
Gordon is expected to be in attendance at Soldier Field on Sunday when Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak should feature for the first time in pre-season. FSG will not be the only ones at Liverpool looking for a return on their combined £241m investment in the pair.
“We need a very good version of Florian,” Iraola said this week, when confirming he intends to play the Germany international “in that position behind the striker” rather than on the left, where he operated without reward at the World Cup, or in the variety of roles that Slot tried without success.
Wirtz supplying Isak and/or Hugo Ekitiké was always the intended plan of attack for Liverpool last season. The trio ultimately played only 119 minutes together as injuries struck. That stat was never lost on Slot as he was ushered to the exit after a turbulent and toxic campaign.
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Liverpool need a very good version of Isak, too. The excuse of playing catch-up having missed pre-season, or almost four months of the season due to a fractured ankle and fibula, no longer washes for a striker who featured in all four games of Sweden’s World Cup. Isak has looked sharp in pre-season training. He not only has to sustain that sharpness next season but convince he is a suitable fit for this Liverpool team.
Iraola’s options and vision for Liverpool will improve as senior names return but he undoubtedly requires more help through the transfer market. Work is under way on a move for Bradley Barcola, who is open to leaving Paris Saint-Germain for Anfield, but a deal for a winger who the European champions value at £145m is yet to be struck.
A lack of defensive cover cost Liverpool last season and remains a glaring issue, and there are doubts over the futures of Curtis Jones, Federico Chiesa and Harvey Elliott, among others.
Liverpool’s head coach has admitted he “hates this month of August” because of the uncertainty that surrounds players while the season starts. “It’s difficult to build a proper team with a lot of question marks,” he added. Between Soldier Field on Sunday and St James’ Park on 23 August, the building work must accelerate.
