Andoni Iraola's Ambitious Start at Liverpool
Andoni Iraola walks into Anfield with his eyes wide open and his ambitions even wider.
A year ago he was dragging AFC Bournemouth into Europe for the first time in their history, squeezing every drop out of a squad most tipped to struggle. Now he inherits Liverpool, a club that finished just one place above his Bournemouth side but lives in a completely different stratosphere of expectation.
“Liverpool is Liverpool,” he told the club’s website on his first day in the job. Four words that say plenty. The rest of his answer revealed the pull of the place: the atmosphere, the supporters, the chance to work with elite players and, most of all, the opportunity “to fight for titles.”
That is the bar. Nothing less.
Iraola’s first challenge: build while the stars rest
The timing of his arrival is awkward and intriguing in equal measure. Eleven Liverpool players are away at the FIFA World Cup, carrying the weight of their nations and a long season in their legs.
Iraola’s instinct is to protect them.
“The senior players that have played in the World Cup… they need and deserve a rest,” he said, fully aware that his first weeks at Kirkby will be shaped more by those not on the plane than those who are.
That opens a different kind of opportunity. The Basque coach, renowned for his intensity and attention to detail, will lean into the players who usually live on the fringes.
“This allows us to give important minutes to train more closely with the young players that probably we don’t know as well,” he explained. Those who have been parked in the development squad, or sent on loan and half-forgotten, suddenly find the door ajar.
Pre-season, often treated as a fitness exercise, becomes an audition. “Those trainings, those minutes will be very valuable for us to take decisions,” Iraola added. Some careers will be kick-started. Others may quietly end.
And hanging over everything is the looming void on the right flank.
Mohamed Salah, the defining figure of Liverpool’s last era, is leaving after nine seasons at Anfield. Replacing his goals, his gravity, his sheer presence is a puzzle that would test any coach. Iraola and the recruitment team already have a name in mind.
Diomande: from trialist to headline target
RB Leipzig winger Yan Diomande is suddenly one of the most coveted young forwards in Europe. At 19, he has just delivered a breakout season in Germany: 13 goals, 10 assists, 36 appearances, Champions League qualification secured and 118 successful dribbles – a staggering 50 more than any other player in the Bundesliga.
Those numbers have dragged the spotlight onto him. So have the clubs circling.
According to The Athletic’s David Ornstein, Liverpool have made contact with Leipzig about a potential deal, with Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City also monitoring the Ivorian. If Iraola wants a fearless, line-breaking right winger to succeed Salah, Diomande fits the profile.
His route here has been anything but smooth. English football has already had a close look at him and shrugged. He had trials at Chelsea, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth, and even a spell at Rangers in Scotland, but no permanent deal ever materialised.
“I did not know what was going on,” he told Sky Sports of that nomadic period. “For me, it was just funny moving from club to club like this, to see players like [Michael] Olise and [Eberechi] Eze. That was a good experience.”
Eventually, he landed at Leganes in November 2024. Ten LaLiga appearances later, RB Leipzig moved quickly and decisively. The transformation since then has been dramatic.
“Everything went fast,” he said. “This year was amazing for me. To play in the AFCON at 19, to qualify for the World Cup, to play in the Champions League, and I am on my way to the World Cup. I am just proud.”
If Liverpool turn admiration into an agreement, Diomande’s second crack at English football will look very different from his first – not as a hopeful trialist, but as the man asked to help carry a new Liverpool attack.
United double down on their transfer blueprint
Across the north-west, Manchester United are preparing for a very different kind of summer – one they insist will look a lot like the last.
United finished third in the Premier League and hit on a recruitment strategy that actually worked. Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko all reached double figures for league goals after arriving before the 2025/26 season. Behind them, Senne Lammens impressed so much that he was named Barclays Transfer of the Season this week.
That is not a bad hit rate for one window. The club’s chief executive Omar Berrada has no intention of ripping it up.
“I think the template for what we did last summer will be replicated,” he told the club’s Inside Carrington podcast.
The message was clear: preparation and clarity over panic and improvisation.
“You always go into a window and you don’t know how you’re going to come out of it, but you have to be really prepared,” Berrada said. “You have to have a clear plan, you have to know exactly what positions you’re looking to strengthen and you also have to be prepared for any eventuality.”
Exits they do not expect. Opportunities they did not see coming. United want to be ready for all of it.
“So, we have to be ready, we have to be agile and flexible. But we have a clear plan,” he stressed.
That plan is built on balance. “We want a mix of experience and youth, we want a mix of players who have demonstrated they can perform in the Premier League and perhaps also players who are doing very well outside the Premier League.”
The approach is already shaping this summer. BBC Sport reported earlier this week that United have agreed a £35m deal with Atalanta for Brazil midfielder Ederson, a move that fits neatly into the template: prime age, proven at a strong European club, with room still to grow.
The question now is whether United can stack another smart window on top of the last and turn a solid third-place finish into something more serious.
Amad stuns France as World Cup looms
While executives talk strategy in boardrooms, players are fighting for form and places on the pitch. In France’s case, that fight just came with a jolt.
Didier Deschamps’ side are many people’s favourites for the World Cup, packed with talent and still scarred enough by their 2022 final defeat to be dangerous. Yet in a warm-up match against Ivory Coast, they slipped.
Rayan Cherki, one of the brightest of France’s new wave and a Manchester City player, lit up the cusp of half-time with a brilliant strike to give Les Bleus the lead. It looked like a routine tune-up win was on its way.
Then Amad stepped off the bench.
The Manchester United forward, searching for rhythm and responsibility at international level, seized his moment in the 84th minute. One chance, one clean, first-time finish into the bottom corner. Ivory Coast 2, France 1. A friendly on paper, but a statement for him.
Around him, the Premier League was everywhere. Lucas Digne, Maxence Lacroix, Malo Gusto, Ibrahima Konate and Jean-Philippe Mateta all featured for France. Ibrahim Sangare and Simon Adingra represented Ivory Coast. It felt like a snapshot of the league’s reach as much as a World Cup rehearsal.
Deschamps did not rage. He recalibrated.
“It’s a wake-up call, if we needed one,” he said. “I’m not going to dramatise the defeat, just as I wouldn’t have become overly excited if we had won. It’s part of the preparation process.”
The message to his players was obvious: sharpen up now, not when the tournament starts.
Gyokeres keeps scoring as Sweden share spoils
Elsewhere in Europe, another Premier League striker kept his eye in.
Arsenal’s Viktor Gyokeres scored in Sweden’s 2-2 draw with Greece, bending a free-kick into the net early in the second half. Before that, Liverpool defender Kostas Tsimikas had opened the scoring for Greece, reminding his club of the quality he can bring at both ends of the pitch.
Leeds United’s Gabriel Gudmundsson, Brighton & Hove Albion’s Yasin Ayari and Liverpool’s Alexander Isak all started for Sweden, underlining again how deeply the Premier League runs through this World Cup build-up.
From Iraola’s first steps at Anfield to Diomande’s next decision, from United’s transfer calculations to Amad’s late winner in a friendly that suddenly mattered, the pieces are already moving.
The new season will not wait.
