Speaking to the press ahead of Liverpool’s home match on Saturday, new boss Andoni Iraola looks forward to the “special” moment of coaching Liverpool at Anfield: “It is going to be emotional. It is a special place. I had to fight a lot to arrive to this place and I hope everything goes well and I can enjoy the game.”
Iraola was unable to avoid more transfer window questions given the clear gaps in squad depth in so many areas. Though he refused any specific names, he did confirm he expects good news
soon, hopes to keep Cody Gakpo at Liverpool, and seems optimistic overall:
“We have to be patient, even myself, and then we will know. I will be comfortable [on deadline day], when they say this is who we are and this is the options we have. Right now, we don’t know. I have in my head, what I want.”
He made it clear that the club knows what he’s looking for in this window and that there’s a seeming agreement there — but that this does not make closing the deals easy. On the whole, he presented himself as calm and almost confident when it comes to the transfer window.
Nonetheless, it’s hard to feel anything other than that Iraola is backed into a corner quite early in his career at Liverpool, forced to wait for needed signings quite late in the window. In an ideal (and non-World Cup year) he would have hoped to have a more settled squad by the second game of the new season.
The Liverpool head coach is accepting of the scrutiny of his new role, however, and was not bullish in his comments: “Everything is going to be magnified, for the good and the bad. I think I am starting to understand everything that happens. It is a matter of myself and my coaching staff, the players, how we can maximze the potential.”
