Liverpool Faces Frantic Week as Iraola Era Begins Against Newcastle
Liverpool’s new season starts with a balancing act. A Premier League opener at St James’ Park on Sunday, a transfer deadline looming, and a squad their new manager openly calls “thin”.
Andoni Iraola walks into all of it at once.
The Spaniard makes his Premier League bow with Liverpool away to Newcastle, where Alexander Isak will face his former club in a storyline that would usually dominate the build-up. It doesn’t. Not this week. Not with Liverpool still scrambling to reshape a squad that has lost both experience and star power.
Arne Slot’s second season on Merseyside ended with Champions League qualification but little else to celebrate. The title talk faded early, the momentum drifted, and the mood around Anfield demanded a jolt. Iraola has been hired to provide exactly that – energy, aggression, a new edge – but he knows it will take more than a fresh voice on the touchline.
It will take signings. Several of them.
Endrick turns Liverpool down
One possible solution has already slipped away.
Endrick, back at Real Madrid after a highly productive loan at Lyon, has rejected interest from Liverpool to fight for his place at the Bernabeu under Jose Mourinho, according to ESPN. The 20-year-old Brazilian posted eight goals and eight assists in 21 games in France last season and returned to Spain expecting a clearer path to the first team.
Then Yan Diomande arrived in a £100million deal.
With Vinicius Junior and Kylian Mbappe locked in as automatic starters, two of the three attacking berths are effectively sealed. Diomande is widely viewed as the favourite for the remaining slot on the right, while Rodrygo – currently injured – is also in Mourinho’s plans.
That is a formidable queue. Endrick wants to stand in it anyway.
Liverpool had identified him as a smart fit for Iraola’s system, someone who could cover Isak through the middle and operate from the right, the very area of the pitch that has been left exposed by Mohamed Salah’s abrupt departure this summer. Instead, the Brazilian has chosen the fight in Madrid over a potentially clearer route to minutes at Anfield.
The rejection underlines Liverpool’s problem. They need a new right-sided threat and the market is tight.
Their £50million bid for Brighton winger Yankuba Minteh has already been knocked back this week. The expectation is that Liverpool will return with an improved offer, but Brighton are in a strong negotiating position and know exactly how desperate top clubs become in the final days of a window.
Iraola: “We will definitely sign some players”
If there was any doubt about Liverpool’s intentions, Iraola removed it.
Speaking on Friday, he was blunt about the state of his squad and unequivocal about what comes next. The group is “quite thin”, he admitted, and there will “definitely” be more arrivals before the deadline on September 1.
The club has already moved once, bringing in Ronald Araujo on loan from Barcelona after Joe Gomez suffered an injury in pre-season. It was a necessary stopgap, not a complete fix.
Right-back remains a concern with Conor Bradley struggling for fitness. Curtis Jones has gone to Inter Milan, leaving another hole in midfield and stripping away a homegrown option who understood the club and the league. The gaps are obvious, and Iraola is not pretending otherwise.
“We will definitely sign some players. Some deals you have to wait until the end,” he told Sky Sports. “But the end is the important picture, the one we will have on September 1, because it is true that we are still quite thin.”
The message is clear: judge the squad when the window closes, not now.
The priority, for supporters at least, is a successor to Salah on the right. Rio Ngumoha is expected to see more minutes there, while Victor Munoz can operate off his weaker wing if required. Those are intriguing options, but they are also risks for a club that insists it wants to push back into the title conversation.
So Liverpool head to Newcastle with a new manager, a demanding opening fixture and a team still under construction. By the time Iraola walks back out at Anfield, the faces around him may look very different.
