{"id":569931,"date":"2026-07-27T06:14:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T06:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/569931\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T06:14:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T06:14:17","slug":"sunderland-star-reveals-tactical-fix-andoni-iraola-has-made-to-liverpool-after-one-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/569931\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunderland star reveals tactical fix Andoni Iraola has made to Liverpool after one game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liverpool are already proving to be a different beast after one pre-season game under Andoni Iraola.<\/p>\n

The Reds played their first game under their new boss in a 4-2 victory over Premier League rivals Sunderland on their tour of the USA.<\/p>\n

\"Andoni<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Iraola has already been hard at work putting his stamp on the squadCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

And Black Cats defender Dan Ballard has admitted the Reds are a different prospect to facing Arne Slot’s side last season.<\/p>\n

The two teams played out a 1-1 draw at Anfield last December, with a late Nordi Mukiele own-goal rescuing a point for the home side.<\/p>\n

Liverpool then became the first team to win away at the Stadium of Light in the Premier League in February after a Virgil van Dijk second-half header edged a 1-0 win.<\/p>\n

However, the margin of victory was far greater in the US, with goals from Kieran Morrison, Dominik Szoboszlai, Federico Chiesa and Lewis Koumas seeing the Reds triumph 4-2.<\/p>\n

read more liverpool news<\/p>\n

While the match was only a friendly, Sunderland’s Ballard revealed he has already felt the differences between Iraola’s and Slot’s football.<\/p>\n

What has changed for Liverpool?<\/p>\n

“I\u00a0think\u00a0there’s\u00a0a\u00a0lot\u00a0of\u00a0differences,” The 26-year-old told reporters post-match.<\/p>\n

“The\u00a0new\u00a0gaffer\u00a0sets\u00a0the\u00a0team\u00a0up\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0press\u00a0very\u00a0different\u00a0and\u00a0he’s\u00a0very\u00a0intense\u00a0the\u00a0way\u00a0he\u00a0wants\u00a0his\u00a0teams\u00a0to\u00a0play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We did a lot of work looking at Bournemouth’s team last year, and they’re very aggressive in the press.<\/p>\n

“They play very vertically, and they go straight for goal, which is a little bit different to Slot’s team, a little bit more possession-based.<\/p>\n

“They gave us a little bit more time on the ball last year<\/a>, which we were quite surprised at playing Liverpool, knowing them throughout the years.”<\/p>\n

Former Liverpool talisman Mohamed Salah<\/a> had previously hinted at the players not being enamoured with Slot’s tactics last season.<\/p>\n

The Egyptian, who is now a free agent after\u00a0leaving the club,<\/a> issued a written statement on social media, appearing to take aim at Slot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Salah insisted the club should return to their ‘heavy metal tactics’, a reference to Jurgen Klopp’s style of play in his early Anfield years.<\/p>\n

Liverpool seemingly agreed by announcing their decision to sack Slot<\/a> weeks later after concluding that ‘the team\u2019s trajectory is best addressed through a change of direction.’<\/p>\n

Iraola’s front-footed football that proved popular at Bournemouth was quickly identified for the next era at Anfield<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking after his first unofficial win<\/a> as Liverpool boss, the Spaniard said: “It was difficult to put rhythm into the game.<\/p>\n

\"Liverpool's<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Iraola claimed Liverpool have given themselves a ‘good starting point’ after beating SunderlandCredit: AFP<\/p>\n

“I think both teams were lacking some freshness and it was also humid. The pitch was quite slow. <\/p>\n

“We had some good spells on the ball. I think we lacked a little bit of intensity. You can feel the timing is still not there. <\/p>\n

“We have to work a lot more, but it’s a starting point.”<\/p>\n

On his team going after the game to try to win in the second half, Iraola added: “It was a matter of using the game to push ourselves and to go back to the rhythm that we should have. <\/p>\n

Read More on talkSPORT<\/p>\n

“You play 45, 60 [or] whatever the minutes you play, use them properly. <\/p>\n

“It doesn’t matter the result, but keep pushing, don’t relax, get used to not playing too comfortable. We still have a lot of things to improve.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool are already proving to be a different beast after one pre-season game under Andoni Iraola. The Reds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[36674,16118,42,1547,26605,240405,240406,240407,240408,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-569931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-andoni-iraola","tag-arne-slot","tag-headlines","tag-liverpool-fc","tag-liverpool-news","tag-liverpool-sunderland","tag-liverpool-sunderland-highlights","tag-liverpool-sunderland-reaction","tag-liverpool-sunderland-result","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569931","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=569931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}