{"id":894530,"date":"2026-10-25T21:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T21:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/894530\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T21:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T21:06:09","slug":"andoni-iraola-press-conference-liverpool-2-0-brighton-araujo-isak-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/894530\/","title":{"rendered":"Andoni Iraola press conference: Liverpool 2-0 Brighton, Araujo, Isak and more"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__lead__LA_9t\">Pascal Gross&#8217; own goal in the 17th minute was soon followed by an Alexander Isak finish as the Reds recorded their fourth straight victory in all competitions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">The three points moved Iraola&#8217;s side up to fourth in the Premier League standings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">Read on for a full transcript of the head coach&#8217;s post-match press conference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">On four wins in a row&#8230;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">Very happy. Very happy for today, very happy overall for these four wins. I think we had today a very good opposition in front, similar to Villarreal the other day \u2013 teams that technically are really good. It&#8217;s difficult to defend them a lot of times. I think today the key was how we started. We needed a stronger start, be aggressive, recover the ball, win our duels, be dangerous in transitions. I think we&#8217;ve done it and it has been a different game from the last ones, where we&#8217;ve conceded first and after you need a comeback. Today, I think we&#8217;ve started better and the game has gone differently.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">On Isak&#8230;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">He&#8217;s a striker if we can put him in those positions, we can provide him with crosses, good situations, he will score the goals. I think it&#8217;s a matter of, in this case, Bradley [Barcola] winning the duel, going one-v-one, being faster than the opposition and finding good spots.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\"><a class=\"rte-content_rteContent__link__VtlmO\" href=\"https:\/\/www.liverpoolfc.com\/news\/match-report-brighton-liverpool-premier-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read our match report from Anfield here<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">On whether Liverpool&#8217;s &#8216;appetite&#8217; to defend the penalty area pleased him&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">Yes, especially [in the] second half. In the second half, obviously we defended lower, we didn&#8217;t give so much space. It was 50-50 in the first half. Both defences were quite high and then there was space in behind both defensive lines. Second half, I think we were more compact. But it&#8217;s a team that, if you see stats, they cross a lot, so you have to do the basics very well. You have to clear the ball very well, block shots very well, block crosses, win second balls. I think overall our defenders have been good doing those basics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">On Ronald Araujo&#8217;s performance&#8230;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">It helps a lot. I think we all enjoyed watching Ronald fighting. I think he&#8217;s very good in the duels. Even in the first goal, I think he wins two duels in a row. He arrives to the byline and after it&#8217;s not an assist but it&#8217;s worth an assist. And defensively, I think he&#8217;s been really, really good. I&#8217;m happy for him because I&#8217;ve taken him out in the last two games because we needed more offensive things in half-time and he has continued working with no issues. Today we needed him more. He has given a very, very good 90 minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">On whether this is his &#8216;most significant&#8217; win at Liverpool&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">I don&#8217;t know. I think we have to value the position but also I&#8217;ve liked the two Champions League games here also. I enjoyed a lot the Atletico Madrid game, even the other day the comeback. Today, considering the run of games that they were coming [in from], I think it&#8217;s a very valuable win. But I hope we can have better ones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">On winning duels&#8230;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"rte-content_rteContent__paragraph__iZHS_\">I haven&#8217;t seen the stats but we know how they play, they know how we play, they are going to press, we are going to press, we&#8217;re going to try to build up, they are going to try to build up. So, sometimes we have to go more direct. They were also going a lot direct with [Diego] Gomez in the long balls, so every duel there in the middle, the defensive lines are quite high. Every duel you can win, you have the space to go one-v-one with your wingers, with your No.9. I think, especially [in the] first half, we&#8217;ve been very good winning those duels and we can provide good situations for our offensive players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pascal Gross&#8217; own goal in the 17th minute was soon followed by an Alexander Isak finish as the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":894531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[18765,176546,35420,1084,4933,209940,403,99],"class_list":["post-894530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-alexander-isak","tag-andoni-iraola","tag-brighton-hove-albion","tag-premier-league","tag-press-conference","tag-ronald-araujo","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894530","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=894530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/894531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}