Liverpool's Andoni Iraola Aims to End Slow Starts

Liverpool boss Andoni Iraola wants the drama to stop starting at 1-0 down.

His team are unbeaten, full of character, and already building a reputation for late surges and wild comebacks. But the new manager has seen enough of chasing games. He wants control from the first whistle, not from the 46th minute.

Liverpool have fallen behind in three of Iraola’s first four matches in charge. They rescued draws against Newcastle and Nottingham Forest, turned things around to beat Atletico Madrid 2-1, and brushed aside Ipswich 2-0 thanks to Alexander Isak’s blistering early double last Friday. The resilience is obvious. The pattern is worrying.

“I think the team has goals in it,” Iraola said before Liverpool’s clash with Fulham at Anfield.

He’s right. They have scored at least twice in every game so far and created enough chances to win most of them comfortably. But the manager’s message is clear: stop making life so hard.

The issue is not whether Liverpool can score. It is when.

They went through their first two league fixtures without a single first-half goal. That finally changed at Ipswich, where Isak struck twice inside the opening 10 minutes and the entire tone of the evening shifted. Suddenly Liverpool were not climbing a mountain; they were walking downhill.

“The other games, we started losing and then you have to do a lot of effort to come back,” Iraola explained. “I would like obviously to score the first goal and then everything looks easier, but we need to have the right mentality.”

He pointed to Atletico as the perfect snapshot of what he wants. Within roughly 15 seconds, Alex Mac Allister had a golden chance to score. Take that, and the narrative is about a flying start, not another comeback. Miss it, and the tension creeps in again.

“I think the start of the games is probably one of the parts where we can be a little bit better,” Iraola said. “In the second half we’ve normally been better, but I want to try and impose ourselves from the beginning because it becomes easier, everything.”

The numbers back him up. Liverpool are dangerous, aggressive, and creative once they settle, but those early lulls leave them exposed. In a league this unforgiving, spotting opponents a goal is a habit that eventually bites.

Now comes Fulham, and a familiar face in the opposite dugout.

Álvaro Arbeloa, the former Real Madrid and Liverpool defender, brings his Fulham side to Anfield under pressure. This is only the second managerial job of his career. His first, a short spell in charge of Real Madrid from January, ended without silverware and cleared the way for Jose Mourinho’s return.

His start at Craven Cottage has been equally unforgiving. Three games, three defeats: Chelsea, Sunderland, Crystal Palace. No points. No breathing space.

On paper, it looks bleak. On the pitch, Iraola sees something very different.

“We have played just three Premier League games and to make big conclusions about any team, I think it’s too early, and I think Fulham is a great example,” the Liverpool manager said. “I think they have played well in the three games, honestly. They’ve lost the three games by one goal.”

He pointed to the data as a warning against complacency.

“If you see a lot of the stats they have and you don’t know the points they have, you will think they have five points at least because they’ve been controlling the games.”

So this is not a free hit. Not a soft landing. It is a meeting of two coaches who once fought for the same right-back berth with Spain and now square off as Premier League managers, both trying to impose a clear identity on their teams.

“I think we played maybe very few times together in the national team,” Iraola recalled when asked about Arbeloa. “We were fighting more or less for the same position, but I think he was more successful in that he played more games than me!”

There is respect, a hint of rivalry, and a shared understanding of how quickly judgment arrives at this level.

For Iraola, the equation is simple: keep the spirit, keep the goals, cut out the slow starts. Anfield expects Liverpool to dominate Fulham, to swarm them early, to turn pressure into a lead rather than another rescue mission.

The comebacks have been thrilling. Now Iraola wants something far more ominous for the rest of the league: a Liverpool side that starts as strongly as it finishes.