Andoni Iraola's Challenge at Liverpool: Restoring Belief and Momentum
Andoni Iraola has barely had time to hang his coat at Anfield, but the scale of his task is already glaringly obvious.
Liverpool staggered through last season, still good enough to escape the Champions League group stage, nowhere near convincing enough to look like they might win it. For a club of this size, that’s not a campaign, it’s a warning.
The expectation in August was simple and brutal: Liverpool would compete for everything. Instead, key figures such as Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz never hit the heights demanded of them, and the whole project sagged under the weight of underperformance and injuries. Belief drained away. So did momentum.
Iraola’s first job is to restore both.
Madrid move that could reshape Liverpool’s summer
Help, oddly enough, might be coming from the club that has so often made Liverpool’s life harder: Real Madrid.
In recent years, the Spanish giants have repeatedly pounced on Liverpool’s hesitation in the market, taking Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ibrahima Konaté at the end of their contracts without paying a fee. Liverpool only have themselves to blame for allowing deals to run down, but the pattern has been painful all the same.
The two clubs shop in the same aisle. When elite talent becomes available, their names tend to appear on the same lists. That overlap usually spells trouble for Liverpool.
This time, it might not.
According to journalist Sacha Tavolieri, Real Madrid have now turned their attention to Marcelo Brozović. The Croatian midfielder is a free agent after leaving Al Nassr, and Tavolieri reports that a Real Madrid representative has already contacted Brozović’s camp to check his interest and gather information, with a one-season deal under consideration. José Mourinho, now in charge at the Bernabéu, is said to like the player.
On the surface, it’s a neat, short-term move for Madrid. Look a little closer from a Liverpool perspective, and it starts to look like a lifeline.
A reprieve for Mac Allister?
Alexis Mac Allister has hovered around Real Madrid’s radar for what feels like an age. The Argentine remains a divisive figure among sections of the Liverpool support after an uneven season, but that doesn’t change the cold reality: this squad cannot afford to lose him without a proper replacement.
Liverpool’s depth was brutally exposed last term. Injuries ripped through Iraola’s new side, and the bench often looked threadbare. Go into the 2026–27 season with the same fragility and they risk slipping even further away from the game’s sharp end.
That is where Madrid’s interest in Brozović becomes significant. If Los Blancos move for the Croatian as a stop-gap solution, it could ease the immediate pressure on Liverpool’s midfield situation. A short-term deal for Brozović would suggest Madrid are willing to patch rather than overhaul in that area, at least for this window.
For Liverpool, that buys time. Time to keep Mac Allister. Time to plan a coherent rebuild instead of scrambling to plug another self-inflicted hole.
Mac Allister was not at his best last season, but he still offers intelligence, versatility and a level of technical security Liverpool cannot simply conjure from nowhere. In a squad already short of reliable options, his presence matters. He is far more valuable on the pitch than as a line on an outgoing transfer list.
The nightmare scenario for Iraola would be a late twist: Mourinho deciding that Brozović is not enough, turning back to Mac Allister as the window closes and forcing Liverpool into a decision they are not structurally ready to make.
For now, though, Real Madrid appear to be looking elsewhere. For a manager trying to rebuild belief, and a club desperate to avoid another summer of self-sabotage, that single shift in Madrid’s gaze could be the quiet turning point of Liverpool’s season.
