Liverpool's Pre-Season Challenges: Jacquet, Jones, and Ngumoha
Andoni Iraola’s in-tray at Liverpool is already stacked high and the full squad are not even back through the doors yet.
The new head coach will only get his complete group together on July 14, six days before they fly to the United States. That gives him a short, sharp window at the AXA Training Centre to tackle three issues that could shape Liverpool’s season: fast‑tracking a £60m defender, making a call on a homegrown midfielder, and deciding where his most exciting teenager actually plays.
This is not a gentle bedding-in period. It’s a reset.
1. Jacquet must be ready – and quickly
Jeremy Jacquet turns 21 on Monday. He has just come off shoulder surgery that cut his season short in February. He has walked into a club that paid £60m for him and expects him to grow into Virgil van Dijk’s long-term partner.
There is no soft landing at Anfield.
Liverpool’s hierarchy would not have signed him if they doubted his temperament, but the context matters. Giovanni Leoni is still recovering from an ACL injury suffered 10 months ago, which leaves Jacquet likely to start pre-season alongside Joe Gomez at centre-back.
So this summer is not just about fitness for the Frenchman. It is an audition.
His unveiling last week showed a player desperate to impress, but Iraola’s task is to turn that hunger into structure: positioning, timing, chemistry with the back line, the courage to play on the front foot in a team that will push high again.
The precedent is there. At Bournemouth, Iraola took Dean Huijsen, refined his game, and watched him become a Spain international before a £60m move to Real Madrid. A raw, gifted defender, sharpened by a demanding coach. Liverpool will expect something similar with Jacquet.
And with Jacquet the only summer signing on the tour, every touch in the United States will be scrutinised. The games may be non-competitive, but the stakes for him are anything but. By the time the Premier League starts, Iraola will want a defender who can stand next to Van Dijk, not hide behind him.
2. Curtis Jones: stay, go, or start again?
Curtis Jones returns from holiday in Mallorca next week with his Liverpool future still unresolved.
Inter have already tried twice to prise him away. Their second bid, just under £22m, was turned down. Liverpool are reluctantly open to a sale at around £35m, but with that kind of gap in valuation, talks look stalled. Some at Anfield wonder if the negotiations are effectively dead.
That leaves Jones in a strange limbo. On one hand, he is a city-centre-born Academy graduate at his boyhood club. On the other, clubs like Inter and Aston Villa sense that his lack of minutes could tempt him towards a move.
Pre-season might drag him back into the centre of the picture.
Alexis Mac Allister is still at the World Cup. Ryan Gravenberch is on his break. There is a midfield spot there for Jones if he can seize it, show Iraola he can be a key part of the new plan rather than a peripheral figure from the old one.
For that to happen, the conversation between player and coach becomes crucial. Iraola will need clarity: is Jones ready to commit to a fresh start at Liverpool, or is he quietly eyeing a new challenge?
If Jones buys in and performs on tour, the path to a Premier League starting role is open, at least while Mac Allister is away. If he hesitates, Liverpool have a decision to make. So does he.
This pre-season is not just about sharpness for Jones. It is about identity. Is he the face of a new Liverpool midfield, or a saleable asset in a changing squad?
3. Rio Ngumoha and the right-wing question
Liverpool’s recruitment this summer has told its own story. They have activated Victor Munoz’s £34.5m release clause at Osasuna and signalled to RB Leipzig that they would be willing to go to £86m for Yan Diomande. They have also shown interest in Bradley Barcola at Paris Saint-Germain.
All three are at their best off the left.
At the same time, Liverpool are theoretically searching for the long-term heir to Mohamed Salah on the right of the front three. Spending huge money on a left-sided player and then asking him to learn a new role is a risk that does not sit easily with everyone at the club.
That is where Rio Ngumoha comes in.
Internally, the idea of using him as a right-sided attacker has already been floated. Iraola will now get the chance to decide if that is where the teenager’s future really lies.
Ngumoha’s rise over the last year has been explosive. He forced his way into the first-team picture last summer, scored his first Premier League goal just days before his 17th birthday in that wild 3-2 win at Newcastle United in late August, and finished the season not just as a Liverpool starter but as a full England international.
He only narrowly missed out on the World Cup after a player-of-the-match display against New Zealand in the United States last month. Performances like that have convinced Liverpool to line up a new contract for when he turns 18 in late August.
Bayern Munich are watching. Liverpool are not in the mood to lose him.
His England cameo in America came on the right, and that is where the tactical debate kicks in. Modern forwards often invert, cutting inside onto their stronger foot. Liverpool are actively discussing something different: Ngumoha as a more traditional winger on the right, going on the outside and whipping balls into the box.
There is a clear strategic thread here. Liverpool need to unlock £125m striker Alexander Isak, to feed him more high-quality chances. A natural right-sided provider, stretching the pitch and attacking the byline, could be a powerful tool.
Ngumoha, still at the fledgling stage of his career despite his rapid ascent, might be more malleable than big-money targets like Barcola. Iraola could yet reshape him into the kind of winger this system demands rather than the archetypal inverted forward.
Where the 17-year-old lines up this summer will be telling. Right, left, or even off the front – every minute will offer clues about how Iraola sees him and how Liverpool intend to build their next attacking structure.
What Liverpool liked about Iraola at Bournemouth was not just his intensity, but his track record with young attackers: Eli Junior Kroupi, Rayan, Antoine Semenyo. Players who arrived with talent and left with sharper edges.
Ngumoha now steps into that production line. If Iraola gets the positioning right, Liverpool might not just find Salah’s successor. They might find the player who defines the next era at Anfield.
