Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
No, don’t worry, we’re not making sweeping judgments of Andoni Iraola – although we will come on to him very shortly – but the Nottingham Forest manager.
Oliver Glasner, like Sean Dyche last season and Nuno Espirito Santo the year before, has rocked up at Anfield and exposed Liverpool’s vulnerabilities.
Two years ago, Liverpool’s bogey team Forest were the first side to beat Arne Slot on September 14, 2024. He didn’t lose another league game until April 6, 2025 and they were crowned champions of England three weeks later.
Last year, a 3-0 Forest triumph marked Slot’s eighth loss in 11 games in a run that was the beginning of the end for the Dutch empire at Anfield.
This time it was only a draw but the same issues were on display for Liverpool. A susceptibility to the counter attack, a lack of ingenuity to break down a stubborn low block, second best in the physical battles.
Had it not been for Alexander Isak’s first goal of the season and a thunderous strike to get off the mark for new boy Victor Munoz, Forest would have travelled back to Nottingham with three straight wins at Anfield.
As it was, Iraola’s men showed fight and registered a point, just as they did at Newcastle six days earlier. A pair of 2-2 draws to start the season is not good by any stretch but it could – and maybe should – have been much worse.
The new head coach is still waiting to see his DNA in this Liverpool side. For now, he is seeing what he would have noticed when studying them last term.
It was well trailed that Iraola would take time to get his methods working – he started with a terrible run at Bournemouth before a boom period saw them fly up the table and never look back, culminating in taking them to European football for the first time.
Anfield is not the best place for any patient experiments, though. The stadium is a place fraught with nerves and frustration. When a pass goes astray, the grumbles are clear. When an opponent has a chance, the anxiety spreads like a virus. Maybe both of those are symptoms of a hangover from last season when it felt like Liverpool hit a new low each week.
Last week at Newcastle, weaknesses were exposed in the Reds midfield. There was a slight improvement here, as Iraola dropped Ryan Gravenberch, but the back four still resembled soldiers entering the battlefield with no armour.
Wide defence was the issue this week. Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez have time on their side but it is hard to escape the conclusion that they are seismic downgrades on their predecessors. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson used to battle for assist records, now the full backs barely beat the first defender with their crosses.
At the other end, they are targeted and bullied. Dan Ndoye could have had a hat-trick here if he had luck on his side. Alisson gave away a penalty but the Brazil No1 came to the rescue many times before that to bail out Liverpool’s lacklustre back four.
Munoz was a shining light and the man of the match, though, in one positive. He looks a real talent and a typical Liverpool signing at £34.5million from Osasuna. That’s a steal in this market and the Spain international will certainly help solve Iraola’s attacking issues.
Bradley Barcola will do the same and then some. The Frenchman is set to pen a five-year deal in the next 24 hours, pending a medical. He will cost £123million so, unlike Munoz and birthday boy Rio Ngumoha, 18, Barcola must bring instant success.
All the pointers are that he will do that given he is a two-time champion of Europe and was Paris Saint-Germain’s top scorer in Ligue Un last season. He plays like he has lightning in his boots and his tricks are magic, and he should be the game-changer Iraola demands.
Instant success is no guarantee for big-money buys, though. No one knows that more than Liverpool’s transfer chiefs. Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz cost a combined £241million but have not repaid the outlay yet.
They did, though, make important strides to help Liverpool to this point. Wirtz’s passing was crisper and he appeared to move the ball forward quicker, rather than filtering and playing safe. Isak took his goal well also, just his fifth in a Reds shirt as we approach the one-year anniversary of his arrival.
Much better on both counts for two players who have shown glimpses but never had any consistency. Another solid performance at Ipswich on Friday night is a good place to buck that trend, maybe with Barcola to their left – though the Frenchman has been left out of PSG squads and will need time to build fitness.
It is hard to arrive at a real conclusion of Iraola’s team because, as we saw here, it is simultaneously fair to say that the sky is the limit – if the big-money boys start ticking – but also that the floor is worryingly low if last seasons’ issues are not fixed.
This match was watched by Liverpool’s new vice chairman Amit Bhatia and his billionaire father-in-law Lakshmi Mittal, alongside principal owner John W Henry.
It represents the start of a new era for the club with the world’s third-richest man Jeff Bezos backing the project.
But unlike most things in Bezos’s world, Iraola might not be able to order success on next-day delivery.
