Liverpool's New Manager Demands Fast Starts

Andoni Iraola has seen enough of the drama.

Liverpool’s new manager has watched his team claw their way back from slow starts, ride out early blows, and still protect an unbeaten record. It speaks well of their character. It says far less about their control.

He wants that to change from the first whistle.

Liverpool have fallen behind in three of Iraola’s first four games in charge. They rescued draws against Newcastle and Nottingham Forest, then beat Ipswich 2-0 after Alexander Isak struck twice inside the opening 10 minutes, before turning around a 2-1 win over Atletico Madrid. The resilience is obvious. The pattern is obvious too.

“I think the team has goals in it,” Iraola said.

He is right. They have scored at least twice in every game so far and created enough chances to win most of them comfortably. The problem is when those goals arrive – and what happens at the other end while they are still warming up.

Not conceding twice against Newcastle. Not allowing Forest back into it. Not letting opponents land the first punch. That is the shift he is demanding.

The numbers back him up. Liverpool failed to score a first-half goal in their opening two league matches. Only at Ipswich did that change, Isak’s rapid double ripping up the script and turning a potentially awkward evening into a far more straightforward exercise.

“The other games, we started losing and then you have to do a lot of effort to come back,” the Spaniard explained.

He knows how much energy that burns, how much it takes out of a squad over a long season. Score first, and everything loosens. The passes flow, the press bites, the anxiety drains out of the stadium instead of creeping into it.

Atletico provided a perfect snapshot of what Iraola wants. Within about 15 seconds, Alex Mac Allister had a clear chance to score. If that goes in, the narrative is transformed. Same ideas, same plan, different verdict. That, for the coach, is the fine margin between a “slow start” and an “incredible start”.

He is not hiding from the reality. “The start of the games is probably one of the parts where we can be a little bit better,” he admitted. The second halves have largely belonged to Liverpool, but Iraola is pushing for something more ruthless: a side that imposes itself from the first minute, not the 46th.

Anfield’s next test of that ambition comes against Fulham, now led by former Real Madrid defender Alvaro Arbeloa in only the second managerial job of his career.

Arbeloa stepped into the Real Madrid hot seat in January and left at the end of a season without silverware, replaced by Jose Mourinho. His early weeks at Craven Cottage have been no gentler. Three games, three defeats – to Chelsea, Sunderland, and Crystal Palace – and not a single point to show for it.

On paper, it looks like a kind fixture for an unbeaten Liverpool side. Iraola is having none of that.

“We have played just three Premier League games and to make big conclusions about any team, I think it’s too early, and I think Fulham is a great example,” he said.

The table says crisis; the performances, he argues, tell a different story.

Fulham have lost all three matches by a single goal. The underlying numbers, in Iraola’s view, paint them as a team that should already have something to show for their efforts. “If you see a lot of the stats they have and you don’t know the points they have, you will think they have five points at least because they’ve been controlling the games.”

That warning carries weight. A side that controls games but loses narrowly is often only one moment, one finish, one deflection away from a very different run. Liverpool know all about tight margins. Iraola does not intend to hand Fulham the early advantage that has become such an unwelcome theme.

There is another layer to this meeting, one that stretches back to their playing days. Iraola and Arbeloa once shared a Spain dressing room, competing for the same position on the right side of defence. The rivalry was quiet, professional, and, as Iraola dryly noted, tilted towards his opposite number.

“We were fighting more or less for the same position, but I think he was more successful in that he played more games than me,” he said with a smile.

Now they meet again, not as full-backs jostling for minutes, but as managers trying to bend a game to their will. One is trying to stop his team making life hard for themselves. The other is searching for the first point of a new project.

If Liverpool finally start fast, Arbeloa may discover just how unforgiving Anfield can be when the home side decides to set the tone early.