How will Liverpool look under Iraola?
From ‘heavy-metal football’ to key players, here’s what Reds’ supporters can expect from their new head coach
Football writer Alex Keble assesses Liverpool’s appointment of Andoni Iraola and analyses whether the ex-Bournemouth boss can replicate Jurgen Klopp’s style of play at Anfield.
One thing’s for sure: Andoni Iraola has been handpicked by Liverpool for his tactical acumen.
That’s not to say his achievements aren’t noteworthy. Iraola ended a three-year spell at AFC Bournemouth with an incredible 18-game unbeaten Premier League run that secured a sixth-place finish and the club’s first-ever qualification for Europe.
Before that, he took Rayo Vallecano from the second tier of Spanish football to LaLiga’s top division, helping to establish the club in the top flight by securing respective finishes of 12th and 11th in the table before leaving for the Cherries in 2023.
But what caught Liverpool’s eye is the way his Bournemouth and Rayo Vallecano teams played: ultra-direct, very high pressing, and an unshakeable belief in taking risks both on and off the ball.
Or to put it in words familiar to every Liverpool fan: Iraola was hired because he plays the intense “heavy-metal football” synonymous with former Reds boss Jurgen Klopp.
Watch: Top 10 Iraola-Ball moments at Bournemouth
How do Iraola teams play?
Iraola is a true believer in the power of the “gegenpress” and the value of disruption. (Gegenpress is the German term for counter-pressing, applying pressure to your opponent close to their own goal.)
Taking his cues from former Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa and, yes, the father of heavy-metal football Klopp, Iraola instructs his team to press furiously high when defending and pierce forward in straight lines when attacking.
In and out of possession, the goal is the same: shake the opposition into a frantic and messy shape, then exploit the disorder by moving rapidly into the final third.
“The first thing we try to do when we recover the ball is play to the No 9,” Iraola told Sky Sports in 2024, “because that is usually the moment when the opponent is less well-positioned and you can find better spaces.”
The stats bear this out.
In 2022/23, Iraola’s final year in Spain, only Bayern Munich forced more high turnovers than Rayo Vallecano in the whole of Europe, with 73.
The trend has continued across Iraola’s three seasons in England. Bournemouth top the charts over that period for shots after winning possession in the attacking third (147).
Iraola’s Cherries allowed only 10.6 passes per defensive action (PPDA – basically restricting your opponents’ ability to pass the ball after they have won it), a number that only teams bettered.
In possession, over the three years, Bournemouth have attacked faster than every other team (moving upfield 1.95 metres per second on average), while only Everton averaged fewer passes per sequence than Bournemouth’s 2.98.
Bournemouth’s stats compared to Premier League rivals, 23/24 to 25/26
| Stat | Data | PL rank |
| Shots from turnovers in final third | 147 | 1st |
|---|---|---|
| PPDA | 10.6 | 4th |
| Ave. direct speed | 1.95m | 1st |
| Passes per sequence | 2.98 | 2nd |
Scroll across to see full table on mobile.
It’s high octane, but that doesn’t mean it’s chaotic.
In their pressing and in their forward attacking thrust, Iraola teams are highly structured; without serious discipline and tactical minutiae, such a progressive system would collapse. The trick is in pressing together (staying compact even when the press is high) and giving detailed positional instructions so each player is freed to trust in making creative decisions.
“Players do not demand freedom; they demand structure from their coaches,” he told Guillem Balague for BBC Radio 5Live. “It is from that structure that they feel free and can make their own decisions.”
Is Iraola really a swing back towards Klopp’s heavy-metal football?
“Wow, that’s real coaching I have to say,” was Klopp’s reaction to playing Bournemouth in January 2024. “That’s proper.”
Watch: Klopp on Iraola
It’s no surprise Klopp is a fan. The football is pretty similar to the heavy-metal philosophy he brought to England from the Bundesliga, suggesting Liverpool are swinging back that way after two years of more tempered football – slower and more possession-based – under Arne Slot.
The following table, showing data related to pressing and direct football, shows a clear pattern. Follow along each line and note how the number dips from Klopp to Slot, then rises again to Iraola.
PL pressing stats: Klopp v Slot v Iraola
| Statistic | Klopp | Slot | Iraola |
|---|---|---|---|
| Possession won* | 57.7 | 40.4 | 48.8 |
| Possession won in final third* | 5.6 | 4.2 | 5.2 |
| High turnovers* | 9.6 | 7.8 | 8.6 |
| Tackles* | 16.6 | 14.9 | 17.9 |
| Shots from fast breaks (incl. goals)* | 0.6 | 1.5 | 1.1 |
| PPDA | 10.2 | 10.9 | 10.6 |
*per 90 mins. Scroll across on mobile to see the full table
There is a pendulum swing back towards Klopp, then. But there are a couple of metrics not included above that tell a different story.
Is Iraola’s football too heavy-metal even for Klopp?
Here’s the twist. Isolating possession, Iraola is nothing like Klopp.
When Klopp first came to the Premier League he played frantic, “gegenpressing” football, but it should not be forgotten that he quickly adapted to a more positional and possession-centric game, leaning on Pep Guardiola’s principles just as much as his Borussia Dortmund ideas in the three seasons in which Liverpool won 90+ points (2018/19, 2019/20 and 2021/22).
Passing stats in PL, Klopp v Slot v Iraola*
| Manager | Possession | Passes per sequence |
|---|---|---|
| Klopp | 61.7% | 4.2 |
| Slot | 58.6% | 4.2 |
| Iraola | 47.5% | 3.0 |
*On average per 90 mins. Scroll across on mobile to see full table
That adaptation came once Klopp realised a club of Liverpool’s size are forced to dominate possession in most matches. Teams tended to sit in a low block against the Reds, particularly at Anfield, either because of an inferiority complex or because of a calculated tactical move to negate the press.
Iraola might have to do something similar, because playing on the counter-attack, firing directly towards goal with just a couple of passes, and packing the front line with confident dribblers (all Iraola traits) might only be possible when managing a team that is allowed to play as the underdogs.
The key question is: will Iraola’s football work – will there be the space to drive into – when he is in charge of a super-club?
Current evidence suggests it may need tweaked: Bournemouth won just one out of 13 Premier League matches last season in which they held 55 per cent or more possession, compared with 12 wins and eight draws in the 25 fixtures when they had less than 55 per cent possession. Only Man City (with 61.6 per cent) averaged more possession than Liverpool (57.9 per cent) in the league in 2025/26.
Bournemouth’s possession records compared
| Statistic | >55% possession | <54% possession |
|---|---|---|
| Win % | 7.7% | 48.0% |
| Points/game | 1.0 | 1.8 |
| Goals/game | 1.1 | 1.8 |
| Fast breaks/game | 0.2 | 1.1 |
On the other hand, during the Klopp era the Premier League was defined by Guardiola’s possession football, and that might not be the case any more.
It was Guardiola himself, while trying to figure out a Manchester City revamp, who pointed out that the league has become increasingly transitional, and less positional, of late.
“The way that modern football is is the way that Bournemouth play,” Guardiola told TNT Sports in January 2025. “Today, modern football is not positional, you have to ride the rhythm.”
Which Liverpool players are best suited to Iraola’s football?
Iraola certainly has a squad ready to invest in his tactical ideas – and fill every space in a 4-2-3-1 formation Iraola tends to pack with creative players.
At the back, Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez (who rose to fame under Iraola at Bournemouth) are the all-out attacking full-backs Iraola will want to enact high tempo, high-risk football, while new signing Jeremy Jacquet should complement Virgil van Dijk in central defence.
More unusually, Florian Wirtz could be utilised as a central midfielder, dropping to take the ball and hit playmaker-passes from deep, just like Alex Scott – once compared to Jack Grealish – has done in a No 8 role for Bournemouth in the 2025/26 season.
How Liverpool might look under Iraola
Dominik Szoboszlai is a pressing monster and therefore a perfect fit, although when Hugo Ekitike returns from injury he might be the ace up the sleeve, repositioned as a No 10 to solve the Ekitike v Alexander Isak dilemma.
Ekitike has the direct, slaloming, goalscoring qualities of an Iraola No 10, emulating how Junior Kroupi has flourished as an attacking midfielder for Bournemouth. If Ekitike behind Isak works, Liverpool will be most of the way towards establishing a new Mohamed Salah/Roberto Firmino/Sadio Mane relationship.
But that idea rests on Iraola’s fast-paced football surviving the jump up from Bournemouth to one of the biggest clubs in world football.
It rests on Iraola not just riding a trend at Bournemouth, but setting that trend for the whole division. It rests on Iraola achieving something Klopp never did: making heavy-metal football the future of the Premier League.