The suddenness of Liverpool’s lurch from their unbreakable support for Arne Slot to replacing him with the country’s most devoted student of heavy-metal football is all the evidence we need to declare that Mohamed Salah’s is the most influential social media post in Premier League history.
If you pasted Salah’s suspiciously Chat GPT-sounding statement into a Chat GPT request to find the manager who would, as he asked, take Liverpool “back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear”, back to “the football I know how to play”, and back to “the identity that needs to be recovered and kept for good”, it would spit out just a single name.
In tactical spirit, Andoni Iraola is the modern Jurgen Klopp.
His Bournemouth had probably the most distinctive and recognisable playing style in the Premier League, centred on an ultra-hard pressing game that was no less complex, frantic, or explosive than Klopp’s Liverpool at their tactical peak.
Iraola’s ideas, and the way he speaks about football, are spookily familiar, the quotes essentially amounting to a perfect description of gegenpressing: winning the ball high up the pitch and passing forward as fast as possible, using the disruptive moment – and therefore the disruption to the opponent’s shape – to sprint in behind.
Bournemouth played at a very high intensity, always looking to get the ball forward, never wasting a pass and using their wild pressing to create shapes that open up pathways for dribbling forwards and waves of attacking football.
The fit, then, appears perfect.
Since Iraola arrived at Bournemouth three seasons ago, his team have had more shots than anyone else after turning over possession in the attacking third (147). In the same time frame, Liverpool have scored the most goals from high turnovers (27).
In the last three years Bournemouth have the fastest attack in the division, with an average upfield speed of 1.95 metres per second. In 2025/26 Liverpool topped the charts for shots from fast breaks (51).
But the similarities aren’t necessarily a good thing, not when we delve into what Klopp’s football, and Salah’s simple definition of it, really entailed.
It’s often forgotten that Klopp significantly tempered the heavy-metal stuff for all three of his 90+ point seasons, adopting to a more Guardiola-esque possession model as opponents dropped deeper, and even then there was a lingering sense Klopp’s pressing was too wild and stretched to work.
Slot won the title by calming everything down a bit, and even if we accept his was ultimately an over-correction for 2025/26, it should be remembered that 12 months ago Liverpool were delighted to have found a manager who could quell the excesses of Klopp.
Iraola will likely crank it back up to 11, for better or for worse.
Bournemouth regularly struggled against deep blocks, winning just one of the 13 Premier League games last season in which they held 55% or more possession.
He is the anti-Slot, just what Salah demanded.
But that is not automatically a recipe for success, not when jumping to the elite level, not when managing a super-club almost exclusively facing deep blocks, not when moving from a 57-point season to hopes of a 90-point one.
Iraola football is most often described as high-risk. The player in possession is expected to risk the low-percentage pass through the eye of a needle and the defender is expected to risk pressing aggressively, trusting they will be supported.
It’s a deck of cards, hence the long string of wins when confidence is high and the long string of defeats when it isn’t. In that context, the appointment is as high-risk as the playing style, especially given that managers simply aren’t given time to adapt these days. Fan bases have never been jumpier.
From Thomas Frank to Arne Slot, the tide can turn remarkably quickly. It’s difficult to imagine Liverpool keeping the faith, as Bournemouth did, should Iraola again begin with a nine-game winless streak.
That being said, there’s a major difference between Bournemouth at the start of 2023/24 and Liverpool in 2026/27: this time, Iraola already has a squad very well setup for his tactical ideas.
Perhaps most significantly, the fears about how to play Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak together should disappear.
Isak is the perfect Iraola number nine, a slaloming direct forward as comfortable carrying the ball forward as holding it up, while Ekitike has all the hallmarks of an Iraola ten; Justin Kluivert and Eli Kroupi are more like inside forwards, but in such a direct and transitional setup they flourished as goalscoring attacking midfielders.
Further back, Dominik Szoboszlai is the pressing monster number eight of Iraola’s dreams, while Florian Wirtz has the elegance and vision to replicate the deeper midfield role of Alex Scott.
Both Szoboszlai and Wirtz should benefit from greater urgency, and in turn more space between the lines to charge about and find a pass.
In defence, Jeremy Jacquet - joining from Rennes for £60 million – has the speed to cope with the high line and, perhaps, offset the issues with an ageing Virgil van Dijk, while Milos Kerkez excelled under Iraola at Bournemouth and Jeremie Frimpong ought to revel in direct attacking football.
Liverpool will need new wingers and reported target Yan Diomande would be a good fit, although perhaps the best signing of all – the one that would most embrace this new high-risk model – would be the man whose parting shot set the chain in motion.
Salah is considering a U-turn, apparently.
If Liverpool’s basic aim here is to revive the Klopp era, then there is no better way of putting it to the test than convincing Salah to give one more year.
Everything that has happened to Liverpool over the last eight years, from the highs to last season’s low, have revolved around him.
It feels right that the next big swing – and surely the final flick of the long Klopp tail – should be led by the man who effectively got Iraola the job.
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