Andoni Iraola has not lost a game as Liverpool manager. He also has not yet produced the football people queued up to watch him produce. Both of those things were true before the international break and both will still be true on Sunday afternoon, when Manchester City arrive at Anfield for a 4.30pm kick-off that looks like the first real examination of his reign.
A manager willing to drop people
Sky Sports News' Vinny O'Connor, speaking on the Sky Sports Premier League podcast, framed the opening months around selection courage rather than style. "What I've seen from Andoni Iraola is that he's happy to make big decisions - and it was a big decision to leave out Jeremie Frimpong and bring in Ronald Araujo at right-back and it's worked. Liverpool needed to be more solid; they've done that," he said. Ryan Gravenberch has been left out too. Lewis Koumas has been used up front, Trey Nyoni has been brought in, and O'Connor read that as trust rather than desperation.
The pressing is arriving in pieces. "Teams aren't able to settle on the ball as much as they would like to against Liverpool, they're not allowing teams as many passes," O'Connor said, while conceding that Liverpool have still been caught on the counter and that Iraola is "still trying to strive for that ideal balance in midfield". Three clean sheets in the last three Premier League games is the hard evidence that something has stuck.
Whether it is the right something is the argument.
Beating Atletico mattered more than it looked
Mark McAdam put the emphasis somewhere simpler. "The key thing is they're unbeaten. When you go into a new football club, don't lose games," he said. The Champions League win over Atletico Madrid, with Alexis Mac Allister among the scorers, was the result he kept returning to, because it proved the new approach survives contact with a serious opponent rather than only with the rest.
McAdam also made the point that Iraola had time at Bournemouth, and that time is the one thing Anfield does not hand out. "If I could have a season ticket to follow Liverpool around for the first six months of Andoni Iraola's term I would absolutely do it," he said, "because when he is at it and at his very best there's no question it will be one of the most exciting brands of football that Liverpool fans have seen for some time."
The pragmatism nobody predicted
Writer Dan Morgan called the start "quietly impressive" and admitted Iraola had surprised him. He had expected a manager wedded to the relentless, high-energy template that made Bournemouth so awkward to play, and instead got someone borrowing from Liverpool's own past. "Rafa Benitez would have maybe seen the need to use a centre-back at right back just to shore up Liverpool's issues defensively, especially around set-pieces. Iraola has done that with Ronaldo Araujo," Morgan said. "Similarly, Jurgen Klopp would have looked at someone like Lewis Koumas and said, 'I can do something with this young player, he's sticking around'."
Morgan's reading is that Iraola understood the size of the job before he started, knew that ten games without a win would bury him in noise, and chose to grind out results while the rest gets built. It is a reasonable trade. It also leaves a bill to be paid eventually, and Morgan's closing thought was the one every Liverpool supporter is sitting on: there is still that anticipation of when the big moment is going to arrive. City on Sunday is the obvious candidate.
Context: Liverpool host Manchester City on Sunday 11 October 2026, kick-off 4.30pm, live on Sky Sports. Iraola is unbeaten since taking charge and his side have kept three consecutive Premier League clean sheets. Quotes from the Sky Sports Premier League podcast, published 5 October 2026, featuring Vinny O'Connor, Mark McAdam and Dan Morgan.
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