Across his spells at Larnaca, Mirandes, Rayo Vallecano and Bournemouth, streakiness has always been a hallmark of Andoni Iraola’s sides – but most of them will tell Liverpool fans that if he gets off to a bad start, he can still prove to be well worth the wait.
In Cyprus, Iraola had Larnaca in fine form in the Europa League qualifying rounds and started the league campaign well, only to hit a run of just one win in nine games in all competitions that cost him his job.
At Mirandes in the Spanish second tier, it was the other way around: Iraola’s side won just one of their first ten games, but then lost just five of their next 33 games.
Streaky clean
That included going on an impressive run to the semi-finals of Copa del Rey, claiming three top-flight scalps from Celta Vigo, Sevilla and Villarreal along the way – but the return to action after the covid-enforced stoppage to the season saw Mirandes finish the season with a run of two wins in nine games and fall out of play-off contention.
Iraola stayed in the Spanish equivalent of the Championship the following season, this time with Rayo Vallecano, and the streakiness continued: three wins from the first four was followed by just two wins in the next eight before they rallied and achieved promotion via the play-offs.
His most extreme start of all came at Bournemouth in 2023. With Iraola installed as Gary O’Neil’s successor, the Cherries didn’t win any of their first nine Premier League games under Iraola, with a 3-0 defeat to a troubled Everton side who had scarcely started the season a particular lowlight.
Much of the criticism was aimed not at Iraola, but at Bournemouth, who were heavily criticised for having made the change in the first place. The Telegraph tipped them for the drop, accusing the club’s decision to replace O’Neil as an act of ‘self-mutilation’ after he had led them away from relegation the previous season.
And who inflicted the defeat in that ninth league game of Iraola’s tenure? O’Neil’s Wolves, of course. The pressure was now on.
But tellingly, the Bournemouth board kept the faith – and despite their awful results, Iraola’s style was already starting to draw a ‘well, actually’ reaction from analysts.
They pointed out that Bournemouth had been handed the toughest opening fixtures of any side in the division – they also faced Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea, Brighton and Arsenal in the run – and yet ranked in the top half on their pressing stats and were consistently getting touches in the opposition box. The implication was that this was a side still adapting to a difficult but potentially rewarding style of play.
Bournemouth fans were generally still on board, too, citing the trickiness of that run, a spate of injuries, late arrivals in the transfer market, and some genuinely excellent passage of play at Anfield and against Tottenham as reasons to stay behind Iraola.
That faith proved to be well-placed. Bournemouth won eight of their next ten Premier League games, with Manchester City the only side to beat them. Not only that, but Bournemouth claimed those wins in style, scoring three against Sheffield United, Nottingham Forest, Fulham and away to Manchester United.
Then came a seven-game winless run, followed by a run of four wins in five games that essentially confirmed a mid-table finish was on the cards.
That first season set a pattern for Iraola’s Bournemouth, who continued to veer back and forth between long unbeaten runs and much more underwhelming periods.
Just consider last season: second in the table after losing just one of their first nine – and they deserved to get something out of that opening-day defeat to Liverpool, in truth.
Bournemouth didn’t win at all in November or December, and lost star man Antoine Semenyo to City in the January transfer window – only to finish the season with an 18-game unbeaten streak that included just slightly too many draws for them to pip Liverpool to Champions League qualification.
Those who watched Bournemouth closely will tell you they often played scintillating stuff.
The Cherries were, for this writer, the most entertaining side in the division for much of the past two seasons, and those poor spells very much felt like the inevitable result of Iraola playing an ultra-intense modern gegenpressing style without having the squad depth required to sustain it at its best over an entire season.
Liverpool should be able to provide that, but whether they actually will or not is another question.
It is clear that the squad needs work, particularly in defence; and for as much as the players who served under Jurgen Klopp are likely to embrace Iraola’s similar style, Liverpool still look from the outside like a club going through a belated transitional period.
The expectation on Iraola will be much higher than it was on the Dorset coast, and yet more winless runs like the ones they suffered through under Arne Slot last season would not go down at all well.
There is real potential for Iraola to end up being made into the fall guy for several years of weird transfer business at Liverpool – but if his prior track record is anything to go by, a bit of patience could go a long way.