Imran Wahid

🚨 Steven Gerrard on Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool after their 2-0 victory over Brighton: “I was watching the game and somebody said to me at half-time, ‘Brighton will come back into this. They’re creating chances. Liverpool can’t keep them out forever.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ He looked at me as if I’d said something ridiculous. But that’s the thing about this Liverpool side. People are still waiting for them to fall apart in matches where they don’t dominate possession. And they keep disappointing those people. Brighton had 64% of the ball. 17 shots. They were getting into Liverpool’s half, moving the ball around, trying to find openings. And they finished the match with one shot on target. One. I don’t care how much possession you’ve had. If you’ve spent 90 minutes trying to score and the goalkeeper has barely had anything to do, something has gone badly wrong for you. And that’s credit to Liverpool. I was impressed by how calm they were. There was no panic, no unnecessary chasing, no players abandoning their positions because Brighton had kept the ball for 30 seconds. They knew what they were doing. Andoni Iraola deserves enormous credit for that. I remember watching some of his teams before he got the Liverpool job. You could see the organisation, the aggression, the understanding between the players. But doing that at Liverpool is different. The expectations are different. Every result is examined. Every tactical decision becomes a discussion. And what I’m seeing now is a manager who isn’t frightened of those expectations. He’s giving this Liverpool team an identity. There’s something else that I think should concern the other clubs in the Premier League. This isn’t even his finished team. Think about that. He’s working with players who were brought to Liverpool under different managers, with different ideas about how football should be played. Some of them are still adapting to what he wants. And already we’re seeing performances like this. I was talking to somebody recently about Liverpool’s future, and he said, ‘Do you think Iraola can really build a team capable of competing with the best?’ I said, ‘He’s already showing you what he can do with the players he’s got. What do you think happens when he starts getting more of the players he actually wants?’ That’s what excites me. Give him time to develop the younger players. Give him a few transfer windows to address the areas he wants to improve. Let the players become completely familiar with his methods. Then see what happens. Because the best teams aren’t just the ones who can score three or four goals when everything is going their way. The best teams are the ones who can look at a dangerous opponent, understand exactly what that opponent wants to do, and take it away from them. That’s what Liverpool did to Brighton. And Brighton aren’t a side who usually struggle to create opportunities. They’ll have looked at Liverpool and believed they could cause problems. They had plenty of the ball. They kept trying. But Liverpool never gave them the match they wanted. That’s the sort of performance that makes other managers pay attention. Andoni hasn’t been at Liverpool long enough to build everything in his own image yet. But if this is what his team looks like while he’s still putting the pieces together, I’d be very interested to see what they look like when he’s finished. Because I don’t think the rest of the Premier League is going to enjoy it.”