Iraola

Iraola’s preference is to name the team on the morning of the game and he saves the post-match debrief with his players for the day after the match.

There is a sense of pragmatism with his media interactions, too, after a situation where his comments to LFC TV following a pre-season friendly against Monaco were widely reported.

Iraola conceded Liverpool had run out of steam after 30 minutes and did not have the energy levels at the time to play with the intensity that he wants. It wasn’t meant to be a dig at his players – rather an admittance that they were working on building that intensity up.

But there is a realisation that at a club like Liverpool, every word you say can end up shared across social media and taken in a different way than you meant. That said, Iraola comes across as calm in his news conferences and open to discussion.

It is very much a case of Iraola adapting to the club as much as the other way round.

One of the main reasons they went for Iraola was his ability to develop young talent and the average age of Liverpool‘s players in the Premier League this season is 25.3 – only five teams have a lower average.

Youngsters like Rio Ngumoha, 18, Trey Nyoni, 19, and Koumas, 20, all started against Tottenham in the Carabao Cup and all three will play bigger roles this season than last.

Intensity is a buzzword under Iraola and that is a non-negotiable but he is already aware that, with such a brutal schedule, Liverpool will need to find ways to adapt and occasionally win games with a set-piece or an individual moment of brilliance.

Going into this weekend, they have made the most sprints in the Premier League but looked flat against Fulham last weekend in a goalless draw, less than 72 hours after beating Atletico Madrid in the Champions League.

Sunday’s game against Bournemouth will be a fourth in 12 days and, after the international break, Liverpool have a spell of four games in 10 days. Between 11 October and 7 November, they will play nine times.

Iraola would no doubt have had a smile seeing Bournemouth win on their Europa League bow against Real Sociedad on Thursday, in the Basque region where he grew up.

Perhaps he will have a moment on the flight down from Liverpool on Saturday to think about how far he has come.

Liverpool haven’t exactly had a dream start under Iraola but they are yet to lose. Becoming a team that is hard to beat is undoubtedly a step in the right direction after 12 league losses last term, but as vice-captain Alisson said last week, draws aren’t good enough for Liverpool.

And Iraola, who is unbeaten in the Premier League since January across his two clubs, knows that a win on familiar territory on Sunday would be the perfect way to head into the international break.

This remains a Liverpool side offering more questions than answers.

One significant question is the Cody Gakpo conundrum, which will roll into the final week of the transfer window.

If Liverpool do bring in two more attacking players then Gakpo may leave.

The club have been linked with Paris St-Germain’s Bradley Barcola and Ibrahim Mbaye and have had two bids rejected for Brighton‘s Yankuba Minteh.

Yet Dutchman Gakpo was Liverpool‘s best player at Newcastle and took his goal brilliantly – while there was another positive in the performance of Spanish forward Victor Munoz on his Liverpool debut from the bench.

Munoz won the late penalty after replacing Ngumoha but Iraola’s decision to take off the English teenager off after just over an hour summed up how much he struggled down the right.

Ngumoha will turn 18 next week and has preferred to play down the left throughout his youth career but failed to have an impact on the other side.

With Iraola determined to have his wingers able to play on both sides, it remains to be seen if that experiment persists once Liverpool get more attackers in.

What is for certain is that Iraola needs more options. Once Munoz and Alexis Mac Allister came on in the 63rd minute, Iraola’s remaining bench options were: Giorgi Mamardashvili, Ronald Araujo, Wataru Endo, Kostas Tsimikas, Trey Nyoni, James McConnell and Lewis Koumas.

Defensively, both Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong had poor games at full-back and Liverpool were undone on the counter attack for both of the goals they conceded.

The lack of a defensive midfielder showed and it was revealing to see Iraola use Mac Allister just ahead of the back four after Joe Willock put Newcastle 2-1 up.

Liverpool have now conceded more goals via fast breaks in all competitions than any other Premier League team since the start of last season – nine.

All that and more will be food for thought for the new Liverpool boss but this was a relatively positive start to life under Iraola – who prefers to wait until the day after the match for a debrief.

“I’ve liked a lot of the things I’ve seen from the team,” he said. “There’s definitely things to improve like the goals but I’ve seen a lot of things I’ve liked from the team. I’ve liked the energy, especially the players coming from the bench. I think we finished the game quite strong physically.”

“We will never give up. I can guarantee you that,” Szoboszlai told Sky Sports. “We have to fight every time – all day long during the 90 minutes. Everybody who came off the bench also made an impact as well. We need the whole squad and we need to be ready.”

That desire was never a cause for concern on Tyneside. But this Liverpool squad must improve, both in terms of quality and quantity.