Ken Early: Iraola might not succeed at Liverpool but it’s good he’s different from Arne Slot

Andoni Iraola and his Liverpool team are learning together. On a raucous but ultimately frustrating night at Anfield, Arsenal taught them that half a performance gets you nowhere in the Premier League.Arsenal turned up without the injured Bukayo Saka and the suspended Max Dowman, after a difficult midweek at Fleetwood when an attack including Kai Havertz and Viktor Gyokeres had struggled to open up League Two opposition.Fleetwood, though, lacked the arrogance to make the sort of error with which Liverpool gifted Arsenal the opening goal.The player most at fault was Alisson, whose delayed yet still sloppy pass invited Martin Odegaard to challenge Jérémy Jacquet. The Arsenal captain won possession with Liverpool in disarray; Declan Rice immediately spotted the opportunity to outflank the opposing defence and powered around the outside. His driven cross was turned in at the back post by Havertz.READ MOREUntil that moment Liverpool had been nervous and tentative, seemingly intimidated by the champions. The shock of giving away such a cheap goal finally jolted them into a response.The rest of the half was a story of Arsenal repelling a stream of desperate Liverpool attacks. The player with the most touches for Iraola’s team in the first half was Trey Nyoni, the 19-year-old midfielder making his first start in the Premier League.Nyoni’s selection in the starting line-up ahead of Ryan Gravenberch and the fit-again Dominik Szoboszlai had caused a minor sensation before kick-off. One thing is for sure: this is a decision Iraola’s predecessor, Arne Slot, would never have made.Might Trey Nyoni fill the hole that has been in Liverpool's midfield since the departure of Fabinho three years ago? Photograph: Peter Byrne/Press Association It’s not just that Slot had a particular admiration for Gravenberch (although he did – he never dropped him in two years). But one of the defining characteristics of his two years at Anfield was a marked reluctance to trust his squad players.Jürgen Klopp used 30 players in his last season at Liverpool, Slot won the league using just 24. There were 20 different players who started at least 10 league matches for Klopp in his last season; Slot’s title season saw just 14 players start that many games.Slot preferred a settled team. This worked well at first, but not for long. It started to feel to Liverpool players that it didn’t really matter what happened in training, in fact it hardly even mattered what happened in games. Slot would keep playing the same team. The outcome was that it killed the sense of internal competition in the squad.From the outset, Iraola has shown he is different. He is prepared to reward players who show eagerness to work. He wants the squad to feel nobody’s place is guaranteed.Gravenberch was immediately dropped after mistakes that led to goals in the first league match at Newcastle. Lewis Koumas has already featured in 12 matches, including five starts. Although he lacks the quality of Liverpool’s other forwards, he runs harder than any of them.Iraola’s bold call nearly blew up in spectacular fashion when Nyoni studded Odegaard’s Achilles’ with his first action, and was fortunate to escape a yellow for another heavy foul a couple of minutes later. A strict referee could have sent him off within five minutes. This is why managers are reluctant to trust inexperienced 19-year-olds in big games.But luckily for Nyoni, this is the Premier League, where the referee will often just ignore any fouls in the first 20 minutes for the sake of letting it flow. So he stayed on the field long enough to grow into the game, and soon his quick, efficient redistribution was making Liverpool tick.Liverpool have lacked a true defensive midfielder since selling Fabinho in 2023 – and tried in 2024 to buy Martín Zubimendi, who spent another evening confined to Arsenal’s bench.Nyoni’s display demonstrated that the coaches who are prepared to have faith in their options often turn out to have more options. Certainly, his positional discipline and rapid decision-making make him a better central midfielder than the hard-running but slow-thinking Szoboszlai, who replaced him around the hour mark. From that moment on, Arsenal wrested back control of the game.Liverpool's Alexis Mac Allister, after surviving a micro-headbutt. Photograph: Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images Arteta’s side faced 34 crosses and dealt comfortably with 32 of them. The two exceptions: Alexis Mac Allister missed Liverpool’s only chance of the game before half-time, heading over from Milos Kerkez’s cross. And Alexander Isak was prevented from reaching a Bradley Barcola cross by Jurriën Timber’s well-timed shirt pull.Much of the postmatch debate focused on how Isak had failed to draw enough attention to the foul for VAR to intervene. The same debate also condemned Mac Allister for crumpling to the ground under the impact of a micro-headbutt from Noni Madueke.Mac Allister at least showed he understands how VAR works. If you don’t ask, you don’t get; the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The system in theory should punish foul play with dispassionate even-handedness, but in practice generally rewards lobbying and theatrics.Yet VAR moves in mysterious ways. This time, Madueke escaped being sent off for doing exactly the same thing as Rodrigo Bentancur of Spurs and Yegor Yarmolyuk of Brentford had been red-carded for inside the last three weeks.In the end Arsenal stood up to the best Liverpool had to throw at them without ever looking likely to concede. With Manchester City mired in scandal, Arteta’s team are enjoying a unipolar moment. The most important question coaches at top clubs have to answer is: can you figure out how to break down the low block you will be confronted with most matchdays?Slot spent his second season at Anfield crying about this exact problem. A succession of Manchester United coaches have foundered on it. Arteta figured out how to do it with set pieces and won the league. Guardiola, year after year, was the master of it.Iraola’s end-to-end vertical football is not really designed to do it. Until now, he has managed smaller teams, where the opposition doesn’t sit back. The next few months will show us whether it can indeed work at the highest level.But at least every player in his squad knows they will get the chance to show they can help.