{"id":479693,"date":"2026-06-02T19:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T19:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/479693\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T19:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T19:44:10","slug":"liverpool-closing-on-deal-to-make-andoni-iraola-head-coach-after-holding-talks-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/479693\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool closing on deal to make Andoni Iraola head coach after holding talks \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liverpool<\/a> are closing in on the appointment of Andoni Iraola<\/a> as their head coach having opened talks with Arne Slot\u2019s<\/a> preferred successor.<\/p>\n

Iraola is the clear frontrunner for the Anfield vacancy with his style of play fitting Liverpool\u2019s criteria for the front-footed, aggressive approach they felt was lacking in Slot\u2019s second season in charge. The Dutchman was sacked on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Richard Hughes, the Liverpool sporting director, who appointed Iraola to take charge at Bournemouth from Rayo Vallecano in 2023, is leading the negotiations with the 43-year-old. Hughes retains a strong working relationship with Iraola\u2019s agent, I\u00f1aki Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez, and talks are expected to progress quickly.<\/p>\n

The Spaniard is available after leaving the Vitality Stadium at the end of last season, upon the expiry of his contract, and Liverpool want to complete the hiring process before the World Cup starts on June 11th. The deal could be concluded before the end of this week.<\/p>\n

Stuttgart\u2019s Sebastian Hoeness and Pierre Sage of Lens have also been considered, but Iraola has always been regarded as the leading candidate.<\/p>\n

Liverpool have not made any approaches to further additions to their coaching staff despite being linked with their former midfielder Thiago Alc\u00e2ntara, who has just left Barcelona. Those moves will only be made once talks with Iraola reach the final stages. Iraola will want to bring his former assistant at Bournemouth, Tommy Elphick, with him to Anfield. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool are closing in on the appointment of Andoni Iraola as their head coach having opened talks with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[36674,61,60,1547,1102,112],"class_list":["post-479693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-andoni-iraola","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-liverpool-fc","tag-premier-league","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}