Liverpool's Injury Woes: Iraola's First Team Sheet Ahead of Newcastle
Andoni Iraola’s first competitive team sheet as Liverpool manager will be shaped as much by the treatment room as the training ground.
The Spaniard opens his Premier League reign against Newcastle United on Sunday knowing several key pieces of his squad are missing, some for the long haul. A quiet summer in the transfer market has only sharpened the focus on those absences, with many of the same faces asked to carry heavy minutes through pre-season.
One of them is Alexander Isak. Back from a strong World Cup with Sweden, the striker has started Liverpool’s last three friendlies and looked sharp, but his fitness remains under close watch after the issues that dogged his first season at Anfield.
“I think the same as others, an important player for us, in a very good place,” Iraola said on Friday. “Training every day, adding minutes, played a good World Cup with Sweden, fitness levels.
“I want to keep him there as much as we can. We know his level, he will score the goals. He will give us a lot of things. My fight with him, the instructions, is off the ball. He wants to score but I try not to judge the strikers if they have or haven't scored.”
With only one game roughly every week in the opening stretch, Isak is expected to cope. He will have to. Hugo Ekitike’s ruptured Achilles, suffered in April, leaves the 26‑year‑old as the main reference up front for at least the first few months of the campaign.
Gomez blow complicates early weeks
Joe Gomez lasted just 10 minutes of last month’s pre-season friendly against Sunderland before pulling up and heading straight down the tunnel. The diagnosis was not catastrophic, but it was enough to rule him out of Iraola’s Anfield bow.
“Joe will be some weeks off. It's a muscle injury... it is difficult to say [how long], but normally, I always put myself as one month,” Iraola explained. “It's not massive, it's a normal muscle injury, [but] I think it's going to be impossible to have him for the start of the season because we are not so far [away]. It shouldn't be a lot more.”
Liverpool are tentatively eyeing the trip to Ipswich Town on Friday, September 4 as a realistic return date, but the new boss will have to navigate his opening fixtures without one of his most versatile defenders.
Long-term absentees test Liverpool’s depth
Behind Gomez on the recovery trail stand three long-term cases that have already shaped Liverpool’s planning for 2026.
Conor Bradley has missed most of the year with a serious knee problem and, like Ekitike, is not expected back until deep into the autumn. Giovanni Leoni, sidelined by an ACL injury, is closest to rejoining full training but is still on course to spend around a full year out.
Iraola grouped the trio together when asked for an update in July.
“In terms of order, I think the closest one to returning is Leoni. After will be Conor and Hugo, but especially the last two are still way off. We are talking about months and still a lot of time out.”
The outlook is stark. Leoni is pencilled in as the first to re-emerge, likely sometime before the winter schedule bites. Bradley and Ekitike, by contrast, are working to similar timetables, with November or December viewed as the realistic window for a comeback rather than a target to be rushed.
For Iraola, that means the early months of his Liverpool tenure will demand careful load management, tactical creativity and a touch of nerve. With reinforcements unlikely to walk through the door, the question is simple: can this patched-up group carry his ideas quickly enough to keep pace at the top end of the Premier League?
