TIME FOR A COACH TRIP<\/p>\n
It was only a matter of time before one of football\u2019s big clubs placed their future in the hands of AI. Happily for Liverpool, they\u2019ve plumped for a man<\/a> with those initials rather than a rapidly growing technology that has been expertly designed to fill billionaires\u2019 pockets. Yep, Andoni Iraola has verbally agreed to replace Arne Slot as Liverpool head coach and will go from walking on water at Bournemouth to hearing \u2013 maybe even singing, though he doesn\u2019t look like a touchline lungs man \u2013 You\u2019ll Never Walk Alone before every home game. The last time Liverpool appointed a Spanish manager, they were champions of Europe within a year. And Iraola will inherit a stronger squad than Rafa Ben\u00edtez did in 2004 \u2013 albeit one that was put together by a manager whose style of play is very different to Iraola\u2019s.<\/p>\n Slot prioritised possession, arguably to a fault, and only Manchester City had a higher average than Liverpool\u2019s 59.3% in the Premier League. Iraola\u2019s Bournemouth team (50.1%, since you asked, 11th out of 20) are much closer in spirit to J\u00fcrgen Klopp\u2019s Liverpool. You\u2019ll be reading a lot about heavy metal in the next few days, mainly regurgitations of Mohamed Salah\u2019s recent quotes. \u201cI want to see Liverpool go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear and back to being a team that wins trophies,\u201d spaffed Salah on Instachat after Liverpool were hammered at Aston Villa. \u201cThat is the football I know how to play and that is the identity that needs to be recovered and kept for good. It cannot be negotiable and everyone that joins this club should adapt to it.\u201d<\/p>\n Iraola won\u2019t need to adapt tactically, and all the available evidence suggests he is a top-class coach. The success or failure of his appointment will probably depend on how well he adapts to the scrutiny and pressure of such a huge job. The imminent appointment of Iraola continues a dizzying managerial merry-go-round, with teams keen to get their business done before the Geopolitics World Cup consumes us all for 39 days and 39 nights. Marco Silva is expected to replace Jos\u00e9 Mourinho at Benfica, which means Fulham, Manchester City and Crystal Palace are looking for new gaffers. So are Salford City, who have given Karl Robinson the boot after losing in the League Two playoff final. Salford have been through five full-time managers in the 2020s. Maybe it\u2019s time to give Claude a go, and we don\u2019t mean Puel.<\/p>\n QUOTE OF THE DAY<\/p>\n \u201cOne hundred per cent! I feel like everyone in the squad and the staff believes we can win it\u201d \u2013 Kobbie Mainoo veers dangerously close to roaring \u201cit\u2019s coming home!!!\u201d when chatting to reporters at England\u2019s first GWC training session<\/a> in Miami.<\/p>\n Kobbie Mainoo, there, with some lovely balancing skills. Photograph: Richard Pelham\/Getty Images<\/p>\n double quotation markTonda Eckert\u2019s \u2018For everything that has happened I want to apologise\u2019 non-apology manages to completely miss the point. Things didn\u2019t \u2018happen\u2019, Tonda, you and your staff \u2018did things\u2019 and you should be apologising for \u2018everything that we did\u2019. I am reminded of Ronald Reagan\u2019s infamous \u2018mistakes were made\u2019. Of course, one should always make allowances for people with limited English skills, but what is Eckert\u2019s excuse?\u201d \u2013 Carl Zetie.<\/p>\n double quotation markInteresting riff on the \u2018You\u2019re Tim Payne\u2019 song. Personally, I wouldn\u2019t classify Carly Simon as either \u2018soft rock\u2019 or album oriented rock (Football Daily letters passim). She\u2019s more in the singer-songwriter genre for me. By the way, her sister Joanna was an acclaimed opera singer. Nessun Dorma, anyone?\u201d \u2013 Mike Wilner.<\/p>\n If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com<\/a>. Today\u2019s prizeless letter o\u2019 the day is \u2026 Carl Zetie. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TIME FOR A COACH TRIP It was only a matter of time before one of football\u2019s big clubs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-712955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}