Anyway enough about Tapas Pulis.
@Scouseinthehouse I expect a manager profile on both Iraola and Hoeness please and thank you
. All jokes aside hope you're enjoying the time away from it all as ngl this season has been so emotionally draining I can't even get myself hyped for the world cup.
I think it’s safe to say Iraola it is then.
I’ve gone backward and forward on this since Saturday. And as much as I like the Basque, I can’t get away from it being a massive gamble of an appointment. Well arguably the biggest gamble since Rodgers. I thought Arne was a gamble stepping up from Holland. But at least he came with a winning pedigree in every season of his managerial career. Which he continued on here until this past season. All under the microscope and pressure at one of the Netherlands big 3. And his reputation as one of the brightest young coaching minds was growing around the Continent. But if I thought hiring Slot was a gamble, that’s
nothing on what I think we are doing now …..
As noted, I really like Andoni.
I love that he’s a proud Basque so he’s onto an immediate winner with all Scousers. I have little doubt he’ll get us and the City, and just what makes us tick, just like Jurgen did. The Basque region is to Spain what Liverpool is to England. Both considering itself different and independent. Hard working. Arrogantly bullish to the outside World. But humble among our peers. Fiercely proud. Not caring what anyone thinks as we do our own thing, stick together as one. and stand up for what we believe to be right. He ticks all the boxes and comes across as a really solid, hard grafting fella’.
OUR type of people.
And his football ideology is brilliantly exciting to watch along the mould of Jurgen's. But with far more of a balance. Built off a real sturdy defence. With lightening quick attacks. Stylistically, it’s what you want to watch. I just aren’t sure at all that it is sustainable at the level we are at going 3 times a week? As opposed to the level Bournemouth are at with weeks in between games. And even less so when you factor in he rides his players even harder than Jurgen did! Which leads to a lot of injuries. (He had 10 out at 1 point this season.). And we know how many times we fell off at the end of seasons under Jurgen, as exhilarating as it was, when legs dropped off.
The
only way I can see Iraola’s style having any chance of succeeding and sustaining is if we get the FAR more important issue right this summer. The recruitment. And LOTS of it! We can’t be doing what we did with Arne with last summers transfer business when he was left massively undermined with a shallow, imbalanced squad. How we managed to spend SO much, yet STILL manage to have a weaker squad in depth (not quality), this year to the title winning squad, is still mind blowing.
If this is to have ANY chance of succeeding, we need to give him a much stronger squad than what we left Arne with. And I’m talking 22/23 senior players. NOT kids. He can’t be working with a 15/16/17 man group. None of what happened at Bournemouth last year when he ran a 13 core group that played 25 or more league games. He needs to be given the tools or he’s doomed to fail.
This summer is MASSIVE for Hughes, Edwards and the recruitment team.
My other concern, where the stats belie the eye test on his attacking style, is the real low win percentage and lack of goals at Bournemouth. Along with the long periods without a win that go under the radar down there. But
won’t fly up here. I mean, granted it’s Bournemouth like. And he did a wonderful job his three years improving them each season from 12th,. To 9th. And then taking them into Europe for the first time this season finishing a miraculous 6th. But when you look into some numbers, it brings home just what a gigantic step up this is from Dean Court to Anfield. And what happened there, just
CAN’T happen here …..
His win % over his 3 seasons with the cherries was just 36% in the league. (P114 W41 D38 L35.). Scoring 170 goals. And conceding 167:- 1.49!goals scored per game/ 1.46 conceded. That would need to improve massively from the get-go. And then there’s the long, winless streaks that would crash the internet if they happened here …..
Bournemouth may have finished on an 18 game unbeaten run this past season to that 6th spot. But they only won 8 of those games. With 5 draws in a row. And prior to that, they went 11 without a win for over 2 months. The last 16 games of the previous season were little better with 4 wins/ 4 draws/ and 8 defeats. And in his first season, they had two long runs of 9 and 7 games without a win. Again, you have to caveat all this that it’s AFC Bournemouth. But it does give massive cause for concern that he can make the humongous step up to managing Liverpool FC …..
Ultimately, change was needed as much as Arne had the 4th best record of any Liverpool manager his first two years on the job and brought home number 20. And we’ll do what we always do and give the manager our unequivocal support. (Something many on-line just can’t understand. It’s not the
name in the job. It’s the actual position that has always been sacrosanct at Anfield. Not supporting Klopp FC. Not Slot FC. But supporting the manager of Liverpool Football Club.).
But I won’t lie when I say as much as I like him, I have not had this many doubts about a new man for a
LONG time. But this is the guy Richard Hughes wants to follow the clubs vision. So this is our man.
Welcome to the family Andoni.
You’re a Red and one of us now.
Now for the
proper hard work from Hughes and his team of recruiting the amount of tools to allow him to do his job …..
Liverpool are set to open formal talks with Andoni Iraola, with the intention of having his appointment confirmed before the World Cup starts. Situation developing fast and a swift conclusion is envisaged either way soon. More on @TelegraphSport
www.bbc.com