Andoni Iraola says his belief in Liverpool goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili is underlined by the fact he tried to previously sign him for Bournemouth.<\/p>\n
The Georgia international will make his first appearance of the season when he replaces Alisson for Tuesday\u2019s Carabao Cup tie against Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield.<\/p>\n
Mamardashvili, who featured 20 times in all competitions in 2025-26, endured a difficult debut campaign at Anfield following a \u00a329million move from Valencia, but Iraola expects him to prove his worth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI rate Giorgi very highly,\u201d Iraola told reporters at Monday\u2019s press conference to preview the third round tie.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know him from his years in Spain. I told him that we tried to sign him for Bournemouth before I came here. He\u2019s a very good goalkeeper and he will start tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defender Joe Gomez is also set to make his first appearance of the season after recovering from the muscle injury he suffered during the pre-season tour of America in July.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoe is training with the team and I think he\u2019s going to be available for tomorrow,\u201d Iraola confirmed. \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of deciding how much he can play and what the best thing to do is.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Liverpool head coach is expected to make plenty of changes after fatigue contributed to Saturday\u2019s stalemate with Fulham in the Premier League. Youngsters Lewis Koumas and Trey Nyoni are both in contention to start, along with Wataru Endo, Jeremie Frimpong and Cody Gakpo, who were among the substitutes last weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow we will see players we haven\u2019t seen and I\u2019m looking forward to seeing if they can help us. They haven\u2019t had the chance so far,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are players who are robust, who can play every three days and their performances don\u2019t change much. But there are others where the risk is bigger. I\u2019m in a position where I need to learn who\u2019s in a position to play three games in a row and who needs a rest. I\u2019m really happy with the squad and I value the players we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s midfield struggled against Fulham with Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai winning just three out of 14 ground duels between them. However, Iraola says problems with his side\u2019s pressing contributed to their failure to create chances.<\/p>\n
\u201cCompared to the previous games, we won the ball a lot lower on the pitch,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen this happens you always have to attack against 11 players and it\u2019s more difficult to make the difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the previous games, we won it a lot higher and were able to make quick transitions, attacking against fewer players and with more space. It\u2019s key that we recover the ball as high as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just a matter of the midfielders. It\u2019s something more collective. When we have been good collectively, the midfielders have looked a lot better and have won more balls because we\u2019ve helped them more. When the team plays well, everyone looks smarter and better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andoni Iraola says his belief in Liverpool goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili is underlined by the fact he tried to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[3450,403,99],"class_list":["post-848771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-liverpool","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}