Andoni Iraola has now reached 15 matches in charge of Liverpool, and the early picture is one of contrast and comparison. He has just suffered back-to-back defeats for the first time since taking over, with the loss in Istanbul following the 1-0 reverse against Arsenal at Anfield, where Liverpool failed to register a shot on target for the first time in more than 20 years.<\/p>\n
Those two defeats in four days mean Iraola has already lost more games than Arne Slot did across his opening 15 matches. But the Spanish coach\u2019s start still sits much closer to J\u00fcrgen Klopp\u2019s first stretch at the club, and in some areas it is even stronger.<\/p>\n
Through 15 games, Iraola has recorded eight wins, four draws and three defeats, with Liverpool scoring 29 and conceding 21. Klopp\u2019s opening 15 produced seven wins, five draws and three losses, with 23 goals scored and 15 conceded. Slot\u2019s start, by comparison, was on another level: 13 wins, one draw and one defeat, with 35 goals scored and only 10 let in.<\/p>\n
Slot\u2019s beginning at Anfield was extraordinary. He became the first manager in club history to win 11 of his first 12 matches, and by his 15th game he had built a sequence of 13 wins and just one defeat. That momentum carried Liverpool on to the 2024-25 Premier League title in his debut season.<\/p>\n
Iraola, however, arrived into a very different situation. He inherited a side that was already substantially changed, unlike Slot, who took over a team that was already highly established. His context is closer to Klopp\u2019s, who arrived with far less of a platform and had to build while going.<\/p>\n
The mood around the team shifted sharply after the Arsenal and Manchester City defeats, both at home, but Iraola pointed to the earlier run of four straight wins and Carabao Cup progress at Chelsea as a reminder that perspective matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not easy in the moment because we react the same way,\u201d Iraola told reporters on Friday. \u201cWhen we lose a game, everyone is angry. But we have to have some perspective, and we know that in the process, [there] will be ups and downs and we have to get through this moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would love to have good performances, wins, good results, but normally it doesn\u2019t happen. There are moments when you are in a good run like we were before Arsenal, now you lose two games and there are always doubts. But I understand, as a supporter I would do the same, it\u2019s normal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iraola\u2019s first 15 Liverpool matches stack up more closely with Klopp than Slot despite a tough recent run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[1836,1162,1066],"class_list":["post-22271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-carabao-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}