Andoni Iraola: What's on new Liverpool head coach's to-do list at Anfield following Reds' disappointing season?

Andoni Iraola has been appointed Liverpool head coach after Arne Slot's sudden departure from Anfield and he has a whole host of issues to find answers to before the start of the next campaign.

Iraola inherits a team that produced a limp title defence, finishing the season 24 points worse off than when they won the Premier League in Slot's debut season in charge 12 months earlier. They were nearer to the relegation zone than eventual champions Arsenal.

That their goal difference was down 35 also says a lot about the comparative struggles at both ends of the pitch between Slot's two campaigns at the club, while the 20 defeats suffered in all competitions in 2025/26 - the most since a dismal season under Graeme Souness in 1992/93 - paints a damning picture too of a group of players lacking in confidence and belief.

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Iraola therefore has plenty to get stuck into between now and the start of the new league season on August 22 - just 33 days after this summer's World Cup final, giving the new Liverpool boss scant time with which to work with his players and implement his ideas.

Chief among the problems facing Iraola if he wants to make the fans believers, not doubters, again are the following....

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Fix dodgy defence

Incredibly, Slot's title winners let in a whopping 53 goals last season, their most ever in a 38-game Premier League season.

That total included 20 set-piece goals (excluding penalties), the second most in Europe's top-five leagues and the joint-highest in the Premier League alongside, perhaps worryingly, Bournemouth, who Iraola coached from 2023-26.

And when Iraola does finally get to work with his defensive unit at the AXA Training Centre after the World Cup, he will be doing so without Ibrahima Konate as part of his back line following the France central defender's departure from the club on a free transfer.

Jeremy Jacquet, currently sidelined with a shoulder problem, is in line to replace his compatriot as captain Virgil van Dijk's centre-back partner, while Giovanni Leoni will also be competing for that role once he recovers from a long-term ACL injury sustained on his debut last September.

Assimilating those two young defenders into a new-look Liverpool defence, while making them less vulnerable at the back, will be one of Iraola's most pressing challenges, although he showed when losing his entire back four and goalkeeper at Bournemouth last summer that he can handle such integration.

Sort out Alisson, Jones and Gomez's futures

Iraola will be desperately hoping Alisson Becker is part of his defence next season after reports in Italy claimed the experienced goalkeeper was wanted by Juventus this summer.

However, the club did trigger a contract extension in March to keep the Brazil international at Anfield until 2027 and are understood to have told the 33-year-old they expect him to honour that commitment.

Whether that is also the case with Curtis Jones and Joe Gomez, however, remains to be seen, with the duo's futures at Anfield in doubt.

Jones is wanted by Inter Milan, who tried to sign him in January, and with both players' contracts running out in 12 months' time, the new boss will urgently want to sit down with the Englishmen to gauge their thoughts.

Make Anfield rocking again with return to Klopp's chaos

When Liverpool were booed off by sections of Anfield following insipid draws with struggling Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea towards the end of last season, despite his many protestations to the contrary, the writing seemed very much on the wall for Slot.

The home faithful had become bored with what they were being served up to watch, while many had also tired of the Dutchman's varying excuses for his side's struggles, whether that be the opposition's low blocks, or the long-ball tactics increasingly used to try to nullify the then champions.

That Slot was seemingly unable to find a solution to those curve balls thrown his way during the campaign ultimately counted most against him when sporting director Richard Hughes conducted his end-of-season review and decided his fate.

Hughes brought Iraola to Bournemouth from Rayo Vallecano in the summer of 2023 following another eyebrow-raising managerial departure in Gary O'Neil - who had just kept the south-coast club in the top flight - and will be hoping this decision proves just as prescient.

And it was revealing that in Liverpool's statement explaining Slot's exit, the club said: "We have come to the conclusion that the team now needs to evolve again. With the recruitment already made, and more planned, the feeling is that the next phase requires a more front-foot, aggressive and urgent style of football."

That Iraola is known to favour "chaos over organisation", according to an interview in The Sunday Times, with former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp rather than Pep Guardiola his coaching inspiration, will have been a big factor in why Hughes chose him to replace Slot.

Now all the 43-year-old must do is get his new charges playing the type of "heavy-metal football" Mohamed Salah referenced in his final parting shot at Slot.

Get £320m attackers gelling while revitalising fading stars

One way to help them return to the sort of 'front-footed' football that was missing last season would be for Iraola to get Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike to finally gel together.

That trio cost the small part of £320.5m as part of the club's record-breaking transfer spend last summer, but due to injury, they were on the pitch together for just 119 minutes.

There will be huge sympathy for Slot in this regard and his successor must hope for more luck when it comes to having his players available next season, especially those big-money attackers.

Because if he does, then Liverpool's owners will surely expect more of a return than the 19 league goals the trio produced between them in their debut campaigns at Anfield, 11 of which came from Ekitike before his season-ending Achilles injury in March.

In particular, Iraola must find a way to extract the best out of the Premier League's most expensive player, although he will not have long on the training ground in pre-season to work with Isak and co.

Coaching is what the Basque loves most and Hughes will now hope his skills here also translate to bringing the best from last summer's other new signings Milos Kerkez, who excelled under him at Bournemouth in 2024-25 when making the PFA Team of the Year, and Jeremie Frimpong.

As well as those new charges, Iraola also needs to revitalise Cody Gakpo and Alexis Mac Allister and, to a lesser extent, Ryan Gravenberch, who struggled to reach the heights of the previous year's title-winning campaign.

And finally, nurturing the nascent career of exciting forward Rio Ngumoha and transitioning the 17-year-old from an impact sub to a regular starter on the left-hand side of the attack will be high on the new Liverpool boss' agenda.

Find Salah replacement as part of summer transfer strategy

Iraola is not someone who likes to get involved in recruitment, preferring instead to concentrate on coaching while the sporting director finds the right players to fit the system, which luckily is how the Fenway Sports Group [FSG] operates.

So, while the new man will not be expected to find Salah's replacement himself - and in any case Hughes and Michael Edwards, CEO of Football at FSG, have already identified RB Leipzig's Yan Diomande for that unenviable role - he will surely have some sort of input into the club's summer transfer strategy.

As stated on Slot's exit, "more recruitment is planned this summer", with Jamie Carragher telling Sky Sports his former club needed at least three new signings for next season: "They don't need to bring six or seven players in, because it's more change, but there's three players that need to go right into the team for me.

"Replace Mo Salah with a right winger, a right-back and a central midfielder, then the players you bought last summer like Ekitike, Isak, Wirtz become better players."

Expect Iraola and Liverpool's once-famed recruitment team then to pour over the data together this summer to help produce a much more balanced squad for him work with than they left Slot with last season.

(c) Sky Sports 2026: Andoni Iraola: What's on new Liverpool head coach's to-do list at Anfield following Reds' disappointing season?